Beethoven and His Contemporaries - Beethoven and Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Beethoven and Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel, born in 1778, was a fixture in the Viennese musical world. A child prodigy and former pupil of Mozart, Hummel was renowned for his incredible virtuosity at the keyboard and legendary prowess at improvisation. Alongside Beethoven, he was widely considered the finest performer of his day. For many years, Hummel enjoyed a close friendship with Beethoven.

Several incidents, however, marred their relationship. In one famous incident, Beethoven was invited by Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy II to write a mass for his wife in 1807. Beethoven agreed and produced the Mass in C, which was performed at the prince's estate in Eisenstadt. Hummel was at the time the Kapellmeister, having been appointed Haydn's successor to the Esterhazy court. The performance did not go well, and the prince is purported to have made a barbed remark to Beethoven afterwards. According to Schindler, Hummel laughed at the prince's words, compounding the always-sensitive Beethoven's feelings of humiliation and persecution. Beethoven promptly left Eisenstadt and carried the grudge for years afterward. This incident, however, likely did not prompt the eventual falling-out between the two men.

A more likely source of contention between them was artistic. Hummel was well known for his keyboard arrangements of Beethoven's works, particularly his symphonies. Beethoven disliked Hummel's style of performance and composition, and, according to Ignaz Moscheles, objected to Hummel's arrangements. Some time in the late 1810s, disagreement surfaced, the exact cause of which is unknown, but which may well have centered on discord over Hummel's arrangements of Beethoven's music.

Hummel spent most of the 1820s at the Weimar Court, where he was a friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and did not see Beethoven again until a remarkable reconciliation took place between the two men at Beethoven's deathbed. Hummel, hearing of Beethoven's serious illness, travelled from Weimar to Vienna to visit his erstwhile friend. According to the account left by Hummel's then-student Ferdinand Hiller, who accompanied his teacher, Hummel may have been motivated by more than compassion. Hummel solicited Beethoven's signature upon a petition he was taking to the Bundestag in order to protect his compositions (and those of others) from illegal copying. All told, Hummel visited Beethoven three times while he was on his deathbed, the last being on 23 March 1827, just three days before his death, and was present at his funeral.