Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born on 14 November 1778 in Austria and trained under a murderers' row of Classical masters: Mozart and Salieri both taught him, then Haydn. He emerged as a composer and pianist just as the old forms were cracking open. His music caught the hinge moment between Classical precision and Romantic sweep, and the way he reimagined piano writing traveled directly into the hands of Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn. He died on 17 October 1837, leaving a stylistic inheritance that outlasted his name.