Composer
Biography:
Franz Hummel, born in 1939, is today regarded as one of the most renowned and original composers in Europe. Discovered, supported and encouraged by Richard Strauss, Eugen Papst, Hans Knappertsbusch and Elly Ney as a child, he first became a pianist (although he was already composing at the age of seven). He gave concerts all over Europe and the USA and recorded over 60 records - with almost the entire classical-romantic repertoire and many modern works. His last major tour as a pianist was in the USSR in 1973. From then on he devoted himself exclusively to composing and gave concerts only sporadically.
Hummel's operas, symphonies, ballet music, concerts and chamber music works are performed by well-known musicians and orchestras. Some of his now 16 operas (the opening opera for the ›European Capital of Culture‹ Linz 09 is the seventeenth) have been performed all over Europe, such as Bluebeard, a parable about Sigmund Freud, which saw around 120 performances between Moscow and Paris, London and Rome . The entire work was recorded by ZDF in 1985. In January 2006, his Sinfonia funebre was premiered in Kobe (Japan) to commemorate the devastating 1996 earthquake. 2006-2007 the 33 variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli were written. Hummel is currently writing a stage work about Friedrich Nietzsche with the working title Zarathustra.
Albums:
