Hinterhuber:Gavle So:Grodd - HUMMEL: Oberons Zauberhorn / Variations on Das Fest der Handwerker / Le retour a de Londres

Hummel's long career as one of Europe's most celebrated virtuosi owed as much to his resourcefulness as a composer as it did to his exceptional technique as a pianist. The four works on this recording illustrate the vitality of Hummel's musical imagination at the height of his career. 'Oberons Zauberhorn' (Oberon's Magic Horn) is a strikingly original fantasy based loosely on Weber's opera 'Oberon. Le retour de Londres', a large-scale rondo composed in 1833, opens with a slow introduction remarkable for its beauty and expressive power which leads into the inventive and brilliantly virtuosic Rondeau.