Introduction | | Using these pages | | History of the Project | | Collections | | Acknowledgments | | | Reading Programmes | | | Benefit to Recital, 1790-1914 | | Introduction | | Wilhelm Cramer, 1786 | | J.N. Hummel, 1830 | | Madame Dulken, 1841 | | C.K. Kiesewetter, 1826 | | Nicolň Paganini, 1832 | | Emil Prudent, 1845 | | Emilie Buonzollazzi, 1854 | | Madame Dulken, 1847 | | Franz Liszt, 1840 | | Charles Hallé, 1865 | | Clara Schumann, 1860 | | Anton Rubinstein, 1867 | | Walter Macfarren, 1866 | | Leopold Godowsky, 1902 | | Harold Bauer, 1910 | | Mischa Elman, 1910 | | Fritz Kreisler, 1909 | | Joseph Joachim, 1906 | | | Promenade to Music Hall | | Introduction | | The Pantheon | | Musard and Juliien | | Henry Wood | | Ballad Concerts I | | Ballad Concerts II | | Music Hall | | | The Symphony | | London, 1791 | | Leipzig, 1787 | | Paris, 1782 | | London, 1826 | | London, 1835 | | Leipzig, 1846 | | Crystal Palace, 1857 | | Hereford, 1862 | | London, 1899 | | Richter Concert, 1886 | | London, 1910 | | | Concert Programmes Project | | | | | | CPH Home Page | | | RCM Home Page | | | | |
| | From the Benefit Concert to the Recital, 1790–1914 | Page 3 | | | |
J. N. Hummel Benefit Concert, London, April 29, 1830If we skip up to 1830, we find a quite new mix of historical periods in some benefit concerts, especially one by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778—1837), the leading piano virtuoso of his generation: Programme 2 J. N. Hummel Benefit Concert, London, April 29, 1830 | | Mozart [1756—91] | Overture | | Pacini [1796—1867] | Aria, "Il soave e bel contento" | | Hummel [1778—1837] | Concerto for pianoforte in A flat, composed for this occasion | | Handel [1685—1759] | Aria, "Lascia amor," Orlando [London 1733] | | Auber [1782—1871] | Duet, "Ce secret là" from Leicester, ou Le chateau de Kenilworth [Paris 1823] | [Interval] | | | Beethoven [1770—1827] | Prometheus Overture [comp. 1800] | | Hummel | Aria, "Deh calma," Matilda von Guise [Vienna 1810] | Hummel | New Characteristic Fantasia Founded on an Indian Air | | Mozart | Terzetto, "Cosa Sento" from Le nozze di Figaro [Vienna 1786] | | Hummel | Extemporary performance | | | | Transcribed from the programme in the Centre for Performance History, Royal College of Music |
Note here how Hummel bows to a quite special British tradition in offering Handel's opera aria but surrounds it with recent music we might call cosmopolitan, chiefly the pieces by Pacini and Auber. It had always been conventional to open a programme with an overture or symphony, and by this time it was expected that these pieces be in the classical style-thus the overtures by Mozart and Beethoven. But Hummel focuses the programme upon himself, reviving a twenty-year-old opera aria while offering two new pieces and an extemporary performance to close the concert. 
Fig. 2. J.N. Hummel F. Sröber: engraving after Ehregott Grünler |
