Johann Nepomuk Hummel (I778-1837)
Music for Flute and Piano, Volume 1
Flute Sonata in D major, Op. 50 (c.1812)
Flute Sonata in A major, Op. 64 (c.1815)
Flute Sonata in G major, Op.2a (c.1790)
Grande Rondeau Brilliant, Op.126 (1834)
Romanza & Terzetto from the Opera Mathilde von Guise (1810, revised 1821, for two flutes and piano)
Eduard Sànchez (flute)
Claude Arimani (flute II)
Enrique Bagaría (piano)
rec. 2023, Barcelona, Spain
Da Vinci Classics C00817 [64]
For many years after his death in 1837, Hummel’s music was unfashionable and unjustly neglected. Writing in the 1930s, Feruccio Bonavia summed up Hummel’s reputation thus: “Hummel, once considered Beethoven’s rival, has been rather drastically dismissed by modern taste” and added “he remains, however, the most attractive of the minor pianoforte composers of his time” (quoted from A.L Bacharach, ed. The Musical Companion, 1934, p.586). It is only in the last few decades that greater justice has started to be done to Hummel’s achievements as a composer.
Hummel’s music is never less than utterly competent, lucidly well-made and sophisticated. At times – in, for example, the Piano Concerto in B minor, Op.89 and the Piano Sonata in F sharp minor, Op.81 – it deserves higher praise than the above epithets imply.
This disc focuses on a relatively narrow area of Hummel’s output, his works for flute and piano. It has the advantage of excellent and thorough booklet notes by the fine harpsichordist and player of the fortepiano Mark Kroll, author of Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician and His World (2007, revised 2nd edition 2022).
In his lifetime Hummel was highly regarded, as a pianist, composer and teacher. At various times he has been praised by many significant musicians including Haydn, Mozart, Liszt, Clara and Robert Schumann (the latter, in his youth, made two unsuccessful approaches to Hummel to be accepted as a pupil), Chopin, Franck and Grieg. It is surely significant that Schubert wished to dedicate his last three piano sonatas to Hummel, but by the time of their publication both their composer and their intended dedicatee were dead and an alternative dedication was used.
Flautist Eduard Sànchez and pianist Enrique Bagaría give disciplined and perceptive performances of these pieces by Hummel, though there are a few moments (as in the ‘Andante’ and the ‘Rondo. Pastorale’ which close the Flute Sonata in D major) where the music is perhaps a little under-characterised. For the most part, however, Sànchez and Bagaría prove to be very persuasive advocates of this attractive music.
One highlight here is the Flute Sonata in G major, written when Hummel was a mere twelve or thirteen years old, in which the different movements seem to echo (pay homage to?) composers and friends, who were already important influences on Hummel’s life and music. In the opening Allegro the music clearly reflects the composer’s friendship with Mozart (who taught the Hummel between the ages of 8 and 10; and in whose household the young student lived). The second movement (‘Romance. Poco Andante) anticipates Hummel’s own mature musical character. In his notes, Kroll observes that it “features some of the virtuoso piano for which Hummel became famous”. Certainly, the piano writing here would, of itself, be enough to justify Alfred Einstein’s passing reference to “Hummel’s sunny disposition and gentle brilliance” (Schubert: The Man & his Music, translated by David Ascoli, London, Granada, 1983, p.125). A different spirit dominates the last movement of this youthful sonata, which Mark Kroll aptly describes as “a delightful Rondo-Allegro in 2/4 time that reminds one of Haydn”. Hummel, during his debut tour as a pianist, had met Haydn in London around the time he wrote this sonata.
This youthful Sonata demonstrates how well, even at such a young age, Hummel could assimilate what others were doing and make use of it in ways that went well beyond slavish imitation. The mature Hummel was not, it has to be admitted, a major innovator; he was, however, a supremely talented synthesiser.
The Sonata in A major was published, in 1815, as a ‘Grande Sonate, pour le Piano avec accompagnement de Violon ou Flûte’, a title which suggests a work in the common manner of the Eighteenth Century, the so-called “accompanied sonata”, in which the piano took the dominant role and the second instrument was given a ‘subsidiary’ role, effectively accompanying the keyboard instrument; any reader who shares my literary interests might like to read Elizabeth Morgan’s article, ‘The Accompanied Sonata and the Domestic Novel in Britain at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century’, in the journal Nineteenth-Century Music, 36 (2), 2012.
However, such expectations turn out to be decidedly misleading once one listens to Hummel’s Flute Sonata in A major. Here, the two instruments, if not exactly equals, are very much partners in a musical dialogue. The first movement (Allegro con garbo) is opened by the pianist, but the flautist is given every opportunity to comment on what the pianist ‘says’. Both Eduard Sànchez and Enrique Bagaría respect the instruction con garbo – garbo meaning something like ‘elegance’ or ‘grace’ – and the result is a musical conversation of considerable beauty. The opening of the second movement (Menuetto – Moderato) is shared beneath the two instruments, before the flute (rather than the piano) “assumes the melodic lead with leaps from d1 to f3v […] accompanied by arpeggios in the piano, and ending in a curious short and gentle seven-bar coda” (Mark Kroll). This is a delightful movement, full of mild surprises, both witty and charming. The closing movement (Rondo Vivace) is in 2/4 and has something of Haydn’s ‘rusticity’ while also being harmonically quite sophisticated. This Sonata would have done credit to any composer active in the 1810s.
Less fascinating are the excerpts from Hummel’s opera Mathilde von Guise, scored for two flutes and piano, in an arrangement by Willliam Forde; for this, Sánchez and Bagaría are joined by Claude Arimani. Unfortunately, Mark Kroll’s notes provide no details, such as when Forde made this arrangement or where in the opera the material comes from. The melodies and what the arranger does with them are pleasant but unremarkable.
There is far more excitement and satisfaction to be found in Hummel’s ‘Grand Rondeau Brillant’, Op.126. This is very much Hummel the ‘Romantic’ composer. It is essentially a virtuoso showpiece, though it is rather more involving than such pieces often are; it has a good deal of emotional impact, with two of the three movements, the first (Allegro e mesto) and the last (Adagio e mesto) including the direction mesto (mournful, sad). There are virtuosic runs for the pianist (Czerny wrote of Hummel’s “pearly playing” quoted thus in H.C. Robbins Landon, Beethoven: A Documentary Study, London, 1975, p.157), while the flautist is given many passages of what one might describe as instrumental bel canto. The piece requires performers who have absolute command of their instruments as well as emotional sensitivity. Eduard Sànchez and Enrique Bagaría fit the bill perfectly. This piece was written in September 1834, two years after his health had begun to fail and almost exactly three years before his death.
This disc can be recommended to all, especially those who, like me, have a fondness for Hummel and his music.
Glyn Pursglove
Availability: Da Vinci Publishing
