August Bungert - Variations and Fugue Op.13

Sontraud Speidel - Piano
00:00 - Theme - Var 5
07:21 Var 6 - 13
16:23 Var 14 - Var 20
23:31 Fugue
August Bungert (1845-1915) was a German Composer. He studied with Ferdinand Kufferath at the Cologne Conservatorium. In Cologne, he was discovered by the composer Max Bruch's sister and he later lived in Paris.

Bungert was destitute in Paris, just managing to make ends meet by giving piano lessons, until his father grudgingly gave him a little emergency support. Although the Paris Conservatorium was home to some celebrated musicians, such as Berlioz, Auber and Rossini, who occasionally noticed talented students, Bungert did not receive the encouragement he expected. Due in part to this disappointment, and in part to an unhappy love affair, he returned to Germany.

In 1874 he moved to Berlin, where he continued his studies under Friedrich Kiel. Here he produced more significant works, among others the Piano Quartet in E flat major, opus 18, which was awarded the Florentine Quartet Prize of 1877 by Johannes Brahms and Robert Volkmann who were the judges of the competition. The piano quartet was performed very successfully in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1913.

Bungert travelled to Italy with the prize money, ostensibly for health reasons, but probably from a deep yearning for Italian life, moving to Pegli, near Genoa. Here he met Giuseppe Verdi, and his neighbour was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, with whom he would form a strong friendship.

In Italy, Bungert made the acquaintance of the Queen of Romania, Elisabeth of Wied, known artistically as Carmen Sylva, who would become of great importance in his later life and for his music.
Sylva founded an organization called the Bungert-Bund to promote his music. During this time, Bungert was considered to be the antithesis of Wagner - Wagner's works drew themes from Norse mythology, while Bungert's libretti were influenced by the Greek classics. Bungert was strongly influenced by Wagner, and planned to build a Bayreuth-style theatre in Bad Godesberg.

His greatest work was the operatic tetralogy "Die Homerische Welt" (The Homeric World), inspired by Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. After two world wars, his music was almost forgotten, especially during the Nazi era, in which it was overshadowed by Wagner's works. Today his music is very seldom played.
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