Franz Hummel (2 January 1939 – 20 August 2022) was a German composer and pianist. From his youth, Hummel was interested in music and, in particular, the works of Richard Strauss,

Eugen Papst Eugen Papst (24 December 1886 – 2 January 1956) was a German composer and music teacher. Life Papst was born in Oberammergau the son of the pedagogue and head teacher of the same name, Eugen Papst (1855-1923), after whom the Eugen-Papst-För ...

and

Hans Knappertsbusch Hans Knappertsbusch (12 March 1888 – 25 October 1965) was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Wagner, Bruckner and Richard Strauss. Knappertsbusch followed the traditional route for an aspiring conductor in Ger ...

. In

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and

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, he studied both composition and piano. He became a virtuoso pianist and travelled across Europe performing, and making 60 recordings of much of the standard repertoire of classical, romantic and

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...

piano music before. In the 1970s, he ceased to publicly perform as a pianist, choosing instead to concentrate on composition. Since then, his operas, symphonies, ballets,

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and

chamber works Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

have been performed, many times, in the most renowned concert halls and opera houses around Europe. Hummel's musical '' Ludwig II: Longing for Paradise'' premiered at the Festspielhaus Neuschwanstein in

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, and was released on CD in 2000. Then, in 2001, he began to perform again as a pianist and gave a concert with the Russian violinist, Liane Issakadse, and the

clarinetist This article lists notable musicians who have played the clarinet. Classical clarinetists * Laver Bariu * Ernest Ačkun * Luís Afonso * Cristiano Alves * Michel Arrignon * Dimitri Ashkenazy * Kinan Azmeh * Alexander Bader * Carl Baerma ...

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, at the Carnegie Hall in New York City. Thereafter, he began work on a follow-up piece to ''Ludwig II'', about Richard Wagner; this was planned to be premiered in 2009, in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

. He has also wrote a third musical, more popular in style, first performed in the spring of 2008. Hummel latterly contributed, with his wife Sandra, on a work about Anton Bruckner. A new opera, titled "Der Richter und sein Henker" ('The Judge and His Hangman'), based on the novel of the same name, was also penned for November 2008. This work premiered at an opera house in

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. To promote

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

as the European Capital of Culture for 2009, he was commissioned to write an opera about Joseph Fouché who was exiled to Linz.

Death

Hummel died on 20 August 2022, at the age of 83.

Selected works

*''Gesualdo'' – an opera in two acts (1996)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hummel, Franz 1939 births 2022 deaths 21st-century classical pianists 21st-century German male musicians German classical pianists German composers Male classical pianists People from Eichstätt (district)