Johann Nepomuk Hummel showed evidence of an extraordinary musical talent from a very early age and, on being taken to Vienna in the 1780s, was lucky enough to be ‘discovered’ by Mozart, who consequently offered to give him free lessons. Hummel subsequently spent most of the late 1780s and early 1790s on tour as a pianist/composer prodigy, creating a sensation wherever he went. In 1793, still aged only fifteen, he returned to Vienna, to have advanced lessons in composition with Albrechtsberger and Salieri, and tuition on the organ from no less a figure than Joseph Haydn.