The international piano competition is dedicated to the memory of composer, piano virtuoso and one of the most important natives of Bratislava, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837).
In 1786 his family moved to Vienna, and the prodigy Johann became a student of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was so enthusiastic about his abilities that he not only taught him for free, but made him a full member of his family for two years. Accompanied by his father, Johann completed his first concert tour between 1788 and 1793, which brought him to England. On the recommendation of his teacher J. Haydn, Hummel became his successor in 1804 as bandmaster at the court of Nicholas II, Prince Esterházy. In 1811 he returned to Vienna, where he became a close friend of Ludwig van Beethoven. They competed as piano virtuosi, but each of them went their own way as a composer, although they influenced each other in this area as well. Hummel was even more commercially successful and often supported Beethoven financially. At Beethoven’s request, after his death in 1827, Hummel improvised on the famous themes of Beethoven’s compositions as part of a concert in his honor. Hummel spent the last period of his life (since 1819) as a famous man in Weimar, where he is buried. He worked here as the bandmaster of the Grand Duchy Orchestra and toured across Europe. He became the most sought-after and most expensive piano teacher in Europe at the time and, together with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a kind of attraction of Weimar; everyone who visited Weimar had to see Goethe and hear Hummel play the piano.
Just as Beethoven had a major influence on the formation of European music, Hummel had a major influence on shaping the ideal of piano playing in the 19th century, on the one hand as the author of the treatise on the art of piano playing Ausführliche theoretisch-practische Anweisung zum Pianoforte-Spiele vom ersten Unterricht an bis zur volkommendsten Ausbildung (1828), and mainly through his influence on the piano style of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Franz Schubert, Fryderyk Chopin, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt. Hummel’s fame as a piano virtuoso was based on his extraordinary pianistic skills, which made him a pioneering phenomenon of romantic virtuosity. His ornamentation is a peculiar fusion of bel canto style vocal ornamentation into the field of piano music. The brilliance, sound fullness and clarity of Hummel’s piano performance are said to have surpassed everything that could be heard until then. Based on his career as a traveling virtuoso, Hummel spread the tradition of this brilliant style throughout Europe. His influence on early Chopin was particularly strong, especially on the style of his piano concerti.
The leading Slovak pianist Marian Lapšanský is the initiator and president of the Johann Nepomuk Hummel International Piano Competition. The first year of the competition took place in 1991, and has since continued, first with a two-year then later a three-year periodicity. As the only music competition in Slovakia to this day, the Johann Nepomuk Hummel International Piano Competition is a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions and the Alink – Argerich Foundation, which guarantees awareness of this event around the world. During its existence, the competition has significantly helped to popularize Hummel’s work and has stimulated the interest of musicians of other genres in studying and recording his compositions.
Markéta Štefková (Bratislava)
As a composer, pianist, conductor and piano teacher, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, born in Preßburg (Bratislava) in 1778, was one of the most briliant and most important personalities of the period between teh classical and the romantic music. Hummel ́s reputation as an outstanding musician begann in his child years already. Mozart was so impressed by that Wunderkind that he decided to give him free piano-lessons and let him stay in his house as a guest. At that time (1787) Hummel geave his first public performance as a pianist in Dresden. On Mozart ́s advice, both Hummels – father Johannes and son Nepomuk – went for five years for concert and educational journey leading them as far as to Denmark or England. Hummel ́s concerts with Haydn in London became „The“ social event of that season.
Back in Vienna Hummel became very soon a master pianist and one of the most prominent piano teachers in town. His appointment to a concert master of the orchestra of Nikolaus Prince Esterházy at Eisenstadt in 1804 was the first culmination point of his career. Hummel worked in Eisenstadt for seven years before he moved back to Vienna where he took lessons in composition by Albrechtsberger and Salieri and lived as a freelance artist. At that time he intensified his contacts to Beethoven and consolidated his reputation as one of the leading piano virtuosos in Europe. After three years as director of the royal chapel of the Court of Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart (1816-1818), he went to Weimar where he was apointed a Grand Duke ́s Director of music. Here Hummel had much more time for his artistic activities and so he rested in this town, where (along with Goethe), he belonged to the most prominent personalities for the rest of his life. After his death on October 17, 1837 he was buried on the cemetery of Weimar.
Hummel ́s fame as a piano virtuoso is due to his exctraordinary instrumental skills, which made him the father of the romantic virtuoso style. The brillance, richness and clarity of his piano-playing went beyond everything hitherto heard. Moreover, Hummel was also an excellent improvisator whoe enormous gifts were admired even by Beethoven. All these qualities made him the most sought after piano teacher. His piano tutor Ausführliche theoretisch-practische Anweisung zum Piano-Forte-Spiel (1828) contains valuable explications of his aesthetic ideals concerning „an elegant and tasteful performance“ as well as a new system of fingering.
The quality of Hummel ́s piano-playing is directly reflected in his numerous compositions for piano, which represent the most important part of his extensive musical oeuvre. His numerous piano pieces (variations cycles, sonatas, fantasies a.o.) are stage up by 18 compositions for piano and orchestra. Though these compositions are formally rooted in the tradition of Mozart and Haydn, the piano part with its fine ornaments and his most effective exploitation of the piano registers indicates more the forthcoming development especially represented by Chopin and Liszt. Hummel also wrote concerts for instruments like bassoon, oboe, mandolin and trumpet, among which the concerto for trumpet and orchestra became very popular.
In his broad production of chamber music the compositions with piano are dominating, whereby the piano part plays a leading role. The Piano septet, Op. 74 (1816) as well as the Piano quintet, Op. 87 (1821) belongs – due to their elaborate themes and a good balance between the piano and the string-ensemble – to the most successful compositions of this genre. Besides instrumental music, which represents the centre of his creative work, Hummel wrote a considerable amount of religious music (masses, cantatas, one Te deum etc.), secular vocal music (cantatas, songs and choral music), numerous compositions for the stage (song plays, operas, monodramas), and last but not least: ballet and pantomime music. Ever since this part of his oeuvre is shadowed by his instrumental works Nevertheless, recent there efforts strive to rediscover them.
Robert Nemeček (Cologne)