Profession: composer

Kraus met Haydn, Gluck, Salieri, Albrechtsberger and Martini on a five-year tour of mainland Europe sponsored by Gustav III of Sweden. Richter was Kraus’s teacher as a student in Mannheim.

Kosma studied with Bartók, and later with Eisler – living at the time in Berlin, he also got to know Weill, Brecht (both to become strong influences) and Weigel. Writers he collaborated with after moving to France included Queneau, Desnos, Aragon and Jacques Prévert, while Renoir, Carné, Grimault and Pierre Prévert were among directors he worked with. Jacques Prévert, a lifelong friend, first introduced him to Renoir. He composed the music for the first songs Gréco recorded.

Field studied as a child with Giordani, and was then apprenticed to Clementi. He met Czerny in Vienna, and Hummel (a competitor) in Moscow, Hummel masquerading as a businessman — they ended firm friends. Glinka was the most noteworthy of Field’s Moscow pupils. He met Mendelssohn, Moscheles and Sterndale Bennett on a final tour of Europe.

Hummel was a pupil of Haydn, Albrechtsberger, Mozart, Salieri and Clementi. Beethoven, whom he visited regularly, and his former students Czerny and Hiller were among his colleagues; Czerny had been studying with Beethoven but switched to Hummel on hearing him play. Hummel and Hiller were pall-bearers at Beethoven’s funeral; he met Schubert at the funeral, who dedicated his last three sonatas to him. He visited Chopin in Poland (both Chopin and Schumann were influenced by him) and Field in Russia.

Hook may be regarded with hindsight as a minor composer, but was very much a man of his time, and successful with it. His son Theodore wrote the words for many of his songs, and libretti for several of his operas, the first at age 16. It seems it was not the father (as sometimes claimed) but the son who ghost-wrote the tenor Michael Kelly’s ‘Reminiscences.’