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"Chopin continued to express, in both words and deeds, his admiration for Hummel. For example, on December 10, 1842, five years after Hummel's death, Chopin would proclaim that Hummel was one of the "masters we all recognize." It is noteworthy that the only other names on Chopin's list were Mozart and Beethoven. Chopin also showed his high regard by using so many of Hummel's works to teach his students, as his pupil Adolf Gutmann recalled: "Chopin held that Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, Bach's pianoforte fugues, and Hummel's compositions were the key to pianoforte-playing, and he considered a training in these composers a fit preparation for his own works. He was particularly fond of Hummel and his style. The two great pianists were also in complete agreement on many aspects of playing the keyboard. One was fingering, a matter of great importance to Chopin, who wrote in his own unfinished piano method "everything is a matter of knowing good fingering. "Chopin considered Hummel to be the master of this art, writing that one should be able to produce "as many different sounds as there are fingers…. Hummel was the most knowledgeable on the subject.""
"The roots of Liszt's compositional style for the piano - the extensive use of ornamentation and keyboard coloratura, the brilliant passage work written in small notes - can be traced to the piano music of Hummel and his contemporaries. The approach of the two virtuosos to the keyboard may also have been more similar than we think. William Mason, one of Liszt's American pupils, tells us in his book Touch and Technic (1889) that Liszt considered a "two-finger exercise" by Hummel to be the source of his technique. The exercise consisted of playing a scale with two fingers, alternating accented and unaccented notes and using an elastic touch by pulling the fingers in towards the palm. Liszt's high opinion of Hummel as an artist and as a man never diminished. It is evident in a letter he wrote to Weimar's Grand Duke Carl Alexander in 1860, reminding his employer that "he should be proud to create works that resemble [Hummel's]."
"Schubert must have been delighted to finally have personal contact with the composer of music he had known and admired for more than a decade. After all, Hummel had lived in Vienna for many years and still enjoyed a huge popularity there as a composer and pianist. One of the works that Schubert knew quite well was Hummel's Septet in D minor, op. 74, his most popular chamber music composition. Schubert, in fact, used the quintet version of this work as the model for his famous Trout Quintet. The solo piano music that Schubert composed between 1816 and his death in 1828 also reveals the strong influence of Hummel's brilliant, virtuosic style of piano writing, culminating in the last three piano sonatas (D. 958-60). Schubert intended to dedicate these works to Hummel but died before they were published. When Diabelli finally brought them out in 1838, Schubert and Hummel had both passed away, so he made the practical business decision to dedicate these works to Schumann."
"the young Schumann, the aspiring virtuoso pianist studying with Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig in 1829, desperately wanted to become Hummel's student. Despite repeated attempts, he never realized this goal, but Hummel would remain Schumann's idol through-out his student years. He was also his role model, as we read in Schumann's letter to his mother of 15 May 1831: "I can have only four goals: Kapellmeister, music teacher, virtuoso and composer. With Hummel, for example, all of these are combined." Schumann's diary also tells us that he practiced Hummel's Clavierschule with a devotion bordering on obsession, once even writing that he planned to play all the exercises in succession. There are over 4,000 in the Clavierschule! Schumann did not realize that goal either, and he eventually moved on to become, well, Robert Schumann. Nevertheless, he maintained a lasting admiration for a select group of Hummel's works, such as the piano concertos in A minor and B minor, the Septet in D minor, op. 74, and the Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 81. The F-sharp minor sonata had a particularly significant impact on Schumann's early piano compositions, as can be seen by the striking similarity of the examples below (Fig. 1). Schumann acknowledged his admiration for Hummel's F-sharp minor sonata in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik of April 26, 1839, predicting, "this sonata will alone immortalize his name.""
"Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin - these emblematic symbols of the Romantic era are indeed indebted to Hummel. The same can be said for many other 19th-century composers, including César Franck, who graduated as a prize-winning pianist from the Paris Conservatoire by playing Hummel's music. Some critics have even found similarities between Hummel's F-sharp minor sonata and the Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 2, of Brahms. Hummel the Classicist, Hummel the Romantic - both descriptions are correct. His life spanned two eras, and so did his music."
-Hummel and the Romantics (by Mark roll)
On what grounds are you suggesting these composers found J. Haydn more inspiring and admirable than Hummel?
