Franz Hummel

Franz Hummel (born 2 January 1939) is 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 even the most renowned concert halls and opera houses of Europe.

His musical "Ludwig II. - Sehnsucht nach dem Paradies" (Ludwig II. - Longing for Paradise) was premiered at the Festspielhaus Neuschwanstein in Füssen, and 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 world-famous clarinetist Giora Feidman at Carnegie Hall in New York. After this he began work on a follow-up piece to "Ludwig II." about Richard Wagner; this is planned to be premiered in 2009 in Dresden. He has also written a third musical, more popular in style, first performed in spring of 2008.

At present he is working, together with his wife Sandra, on a work about Anton Bruckner. A new opera, titled "Der Richter und sein Henker" (The Judge and His Hangman) and based on the novel of the same name, is also planned to be completed in November 2008. This work will be premiered at the opera house in Erfurt. To promote Linz as the European European capital of culture for 2009 he has been commissioned to write an opera about Joseph Fouché who was exiled in Linz.

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