Piano Concerto No. 2 (Hummel)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor, Op. 85 was written in 1816 and published in Vienna in 1821.^[1] Unlike his earlier piano concerti, which closely followed the model of Mozart's, the A minor concerto, like the B minor Concerto, Op. 89, is written in a proto-Romantic style that anticipates the later stylistic developments of composers such as Frédéric Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn.^[2]

Date of composition and scoring

The piano concerto was written by Hummel as a showcase for his virtuosity at the instrument. It was written in 1816 and is scored for piano, flute, two oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Movements

The work is composed in traditional three movement form. There is a solo transition in the second movement leading into the Rondo without pause.

• I. Allegro moderato
• II. Larghetto (in F major)
• III. Rondo: Allegro moderato

Influence

Although Hummel's music, seen as essentially Mozartian in style, had fallen out of fashion by the 1830s, the A minor concerto nonetheless exercised considerable influence over a number of works that helped to usher in the Romantic style. Frédéric Chopin, who had played the Hummel concerti, drew from elements of the A minor concerto in his own piano concerti.^[3] Indeed, it has been suggested that Chopin's concerto is closely linked both thematically and structurally to the Hummel antecedent.^[4]

The A minor concerto da camera of Charles-Valentin Alkan has also been noted for its debt to Hummel's style of writing for the keyboard.^[5]

While generally uninterested in Hummel as a composer,^[6] Robert Schumann had made a close study of the A minor concerto in 1828^[7] and considered it one of the works (along with the F-sharp minor piano sonata) of his "heyday".^[8] And in his own A minor concerto, Schumann makes reference to aspects of Hummel's virtuosic style.^[9]

Notes

1. Mikio Tao, Works Catalogue of Hummel, (pdf)
2. MF Humphries, The Piano Concertos of Johann Nepomuk Hummel Dissertation (Northwestern University, 1957)
3. Chopin: The Piano Concertos, John Rink, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0521446600, pp. 59 & 65.
4. Ref to dig up (unpubl. diss.)
5. Structural Novelty and Tradition in the Early Romantic Piano Concerto, p.116 ISBN 1576470008
6. Mark Kroll, Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician's Life and World, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, ISBN 0810859203, pp. 275-78
7. Schumann, Hummel, and "The Clarity of a Well-Planned Composition", Eric Frederick Jensen, Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 40, Fasc. 1/3 (1999), pp. 59- 70
8. NZfM, 1840, Schumann, "Concertstücke und Concerte für Pianoforte" p. 39 "...ein Werk aus seiner Blüthenzeit, der das A-moll-Konzert..."
9. Macdonald, Claudia. "Schumann's earliest compositions and performances." Journal of Musicological Research 7.2-3 (1987): 259-283, PAGE NUMBER & DOI MISSING

References

• M.F. Humphries, The Piano Concertos of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, PhD Dissertation (Northwestern University, 1957)
• B.H. Kim, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and His Contribution to Piano Music and the Art of Playing the Piano (University of Rochester, 1967)

External links

• Piano Concerto No. 2: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project