Franz Hummel

Franz Hummel was a German composer and pianist. From his youth, Hummel was interested in music and, in particular, the works of Richard Strauss, Eugen Papst and Hans Knappertsbusch. In Munich and Salzburg, 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 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, concerti and chamber works 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 Füssen, 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, Giora Feidman, 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. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_H...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)