Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 02/11/2010, uploaded on 02/11/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Variations on a Theme from  Gluck's Armide, Op. 57           Johann Nepomuk Hummel

While the name of Johann Nepomuk Hummel is not commonly heard today, he was an important part of the musical fabric of Austria during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, as both a composer and virtuoso pianist.  At the age of eight, Hummel was offered music lessons by Mozart, who had been impressed by the boy's musical abilities.  Hummel lived for two years with Mozart.  In 1792, Hummel and Ludwig van Beethoven were contemporaries in Vienna taking composition lessons from Franz Josef Haydn and Antonio Salieri.  Franz Schubert dedicated his last three piano sonati to Hummel, although those dedications were changed later by the publishers.  

Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Armide premiered in 1777 in Paris. Hummel's set of 10 variations was written in 1815.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.