Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born on 14 November 1778 in Pressburg, then in the Kingdom of Hungary and now Bratislava, the only child of a violinist and music teacher who directed the orchestra at the Pressburg Theatre. The family moved to Vienna in about 1787, and at eight Hummel was taken into Mozart’s household, taught and lodged free of charge for two years; he first appeared in public at nine, at one of Mozart’s own concerts. His father then took him on tour, reaching London in 1790, where he studied with Clementi, played a Mozart concerto and a sonata of his own at the Hanover Square Rooms, and in 1791 gave the premiere of a Haydn piano trio there at thirteen. Back in Vienna from 1793 he studied with Albrechtsberger, Haydn and Salieri, and became a friend of the newly arrived Beethoven. He married the singer Elisabeth Röckel on 16 May 1813 and died on 17 October 1837.

Haydn named him his successor as Konzertmeister to Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy at Eisenstadt in 1804; he kept the junior title out of deference until Haydn died in 1809, and was dismissed in May 1811 for neglecting his duties. He was Kapellmeister at Stuttgart from 1816 to 1818 and at Weimar from 1819 until his death, where he became a friend of Goethe. Outside composition he established one of the first musicians’ pension schemes, funding it with benefit tours, and his fight with unauthorised publishers helped establish the principles of musical copyright. His piano writing stands at the hinge between the Classical and Romantic styles and was closely studied by Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn; Schubert dedicated his last three piano sonatas to him, though both men were dead by the time they were published and the dedication was changed to Schumann.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q151953