Friedrich August Kummer

Friedrich August Kummer (5 August 1797 – 22 August 1879), born in Meiningen, Germany, was a cellist, pedagogue, and composer.

As a child, his family moved to Dresden on an invitation by the court chapel to his father, an oboist. Kummer, initially an oboist, took an interest in the violoncello and studied with notable performers Friedrich Dotzauer and Bernhard Romberg.

In 1814 he was admitted into the Dresden chapel as an oboist, since there were no violoncello vacancies. In the same year Carl Maria von Weber appointed Kummer as a violoncellist at the Royal Opera House.

Kummer became an acclaimed performer and in 1850 he was appointed as the principal violoncellist at the court chapel after Dotzauer retired. Kummer himself retired in 1864. His son Friedrich Kummer was born in 1865.

In 1839 Kummer wrote a method, Violoncelloschule für den ersten Unterricht (Violoncello School for Preliminary Instruction), Op. 60, for the violoncello that to this day remains very popular.