August Bungert

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Friedrich August Bungert (born March 14, 1845 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † October 26, 1915 in Leutesdorf ) was a German composer and poet.

Life

Early years

August Bungert was born on March 14, 1845 in Mülheim an der Ruhr and grew up with his younger siblings Henriette and Matthilde. Early on, in high school, his extraordinary musical talent became apparent, which his teacher Heinrich Kufferath, a brother of the composer Hubert Ferdinand Kufferath , was still promoting. Bungert's father, a wealthy merchant and respected member of civil society, thought little of such ambitions and viewed his son's musical talent as an "unfortunate inclination". He wanted his son to have a career as a businessman or doctor. Only his mother supported him, but she died when Bungert was nine years old. In the following years the conflicts with the father increased.

After graduating from high school, August Bungert moved - one may say: fled - to Cologne at the age of 16 . There he attended the conservatory and was a student of Hubert Ferdinand Kufferath. In Cologne the sister of the composer Max Bruch discovered him , who was commissioned by the Conservatoire de Paris to select a talented musician for training in Paris .

“Without thinking about it, I immediately accepted. Before 1866, Paris was considered the artistic center that every practicing musician had to visit in order to gain a reputation and prestige "

- August Bungert : Der Bund - Monthly for the Bungert-Bund and its friends, July 9, 1915
Hutten and Sickingen monument in Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg around 1900

Musical advancement and success

Bungert's financial situation in Paris was bad, he kept himself afloat with piano lessons until his father grudgingly granted him a little help in dire need. Although famous musicians such as Berlioz , Auber and Rossini became aware of the talented student in the Paris Conservatory , Bungert did not, in his own opinion, receive the support he had hoped for. For this reason and because of an unhappy love affair, he returned to Germany. From 1869 he took up a position as a choir director and in 1870 as director of the spa orchestra in Bad Kreuznach . Although several compositions were composed in Kreuznach - the performance of his piece Hutten und Sickingen on the occasion of a monument unveiling at the foot of Ebernburg Castle was a great success - it was obvious that such an activity would not satisfy him in the long term. Bungert therefore went to Berlin in 1874 , where he continued to study with Friedrich Kiel . Several important works were written here, including the Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 18, for which he received a prize in 1878. One of the judges was Johannes Brahms . According to Bungert's own account, he had composed the piece when he was lying in bed with a fever with appendicitis. The piano quartet was even performed in Constantinople in 1913 with great success . He used the prize money to travel to Italy for the first time in 1879 , together with his sister Matthilde.

Allegedly for health reasons, but more likely out of a deeply felt longing for Italy , Bungert moved his residence to Pegli near Genoa . Here he met Giuseppe Verdi . His neighbor was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , with whom he later became friends. The opera Aurora , which premiered in Leipzig in 1884, was written in Pegli .

August Bungert House in Leutesdorf

Bungert and Carmen Sylva

In Italy, Bungert also made the acquaintance of the poet Carmen Sylva (pseudonym of Queen Elisabeth of Romania and Princess zu Wied), an encounter that would shape his later life and future work. Through Carmen Sylva he finally got the desired access to the highest aristocratic circles. Bungert was a frequent guest in the Princely Wied castles and at the Swedish and Romanian royal courts.

In 1890 Carmen Sylva gave him a precious Bechstein grand piano and in 1894 she gave him a house with a large garden on the banks of the Rhine in Leutesdorf , which the Cologne architect and master builder Carl Schauppmeyer (1872–1933) converted in the neoclassical style . The villa is still an ornament of the Rheinallee lined with old plane trees , today August-Bungert-Allee.

August Bungert furnished the house with valuable furniture, works of art and memorabilia. During this time he celebrated his greatest triumphs, especially with the compositions for poems by Carmen Sylva and his Rhine songs, which he often wrote down over a glass of wine at his "Stammtisch" in the Rheingarten of the Hotel Leyscher Hof in Leutesdorf. He often wrote the lyrics for his songs himself.

August Bungert's tomb

From 1896 the four parts of his main work, the opera cycle Homeric World , were premiered in Dresden . By 1910, more than 100 other performances followed across Europe . During this time, Bungert was considered the antipode of Richard Wagner . Wagner's works dealt with themes from Nordic mythology , while Bungert's libretti were based on Greek classical music.

Last years

In 1911, Bungert received the title of professor at the University of Leipzig, where he gave several lectures on his own work. In 1912, the then glamorous spa town of Wiesbaden organized a highly regarded Bungert Festival.

August Bungert died after a long illness on October 26, 1915 in his house in Leutesdorf. As a Protestant Christian, he was not allowed to be buried in the cemetery in the strictly Catholic Leutesdorf - according to his wishes. His grave is in the cemetery of the Feldkirche in Neuwied. The Bungert house in Leutesdorf is now privately owned and not accessible.

The catalog raisonné compiled by Max Chop as an appendix to his Bungert biography lists 362 songs, many of them based on texts by Carmen Sylva, for others - mainly Rhine songs - Bungert wrote the text himself. His greatest work was the operatic tetralogy Homeric World, inspired by Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen .

After two world wars, his work, which was always overshadowed by Richard Wagner, especially during the National Socialist era, was largely forgotten. His pieces of music are rarely performed these days.

Honors

  • In Leutesdorf, the former Rheinallee was renamed August-Bungert-Allee .
  • In 1954, a street in the Speldorf district of Mülheim an der Ruhr was named after him.

Catalog raisonné

Extract from the catalog raisonné by August Bungert:

  • Aurora (other titles: Dear Siegerin / Die Studenten von Salamanka), music comedy, op. 23, premiered in Leipzig in 1884, libretto by Hermann Graeff
  • Hutten und Sickingen (subtitle: A dramatic festival for the German people), musical drama in festival form in five acts, op. 40, premiered in Bad Kreuznach in 1889, libretto by August Bungert
  • Homeric World (other title: The Odyssey) Opera tetralogy, op. 30, libretto by August Bungert
    • 1st part: Kirke , music tragedy in 3 acts, op. 30/1, premiered in 1898 at the Dresden Court Opera
    • Part 2: Nausikaa , music tragedy in 3 acts, op. 30/2, premiered in 1901 at the Dresden Court Opera
    • 3rd part: Odysseus' Heimkehr , music tragedy in 3 acts, op. 30/3, premiered in 1896 at the Dresden Court Opera
    • 4th part: Odysseus' death , music tragedy in 3 acts, op. 30/4, premiered in 1903 at the Dresden Court Opera
  • Sinfonia Vietrix , Symphony in 4 movements for orchestra, choir and solo parts, op.70
  • Torquato Tasso , symphonic overture for large orchestra, op. 14, based on the drama of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • On the Wartburg , symphonic poem for large orchestra, op.29
  • New folk and craft songs in three volumes with piano accompaniment , op. 49, three-volume collection of songs, composed between 1890 and 1894 based on texts by Carmen Sylva, Joseph von Eichendorff , Theodor Storm and others. a.
  • Faust 1 and 2 , incidental music for the production of Goethe's Faust for the Goethe Festival 1903 in Düsseldorf, op.58
  • Mysterium , oratorio based on texts from the Bible , op. 60, premiered in 1909 in Neuwied
  • Genius Triumphans (Zeppelin's Great Voyage) , Symphony, op. 71, performed in honor of the first zeppelin voyage

literature

Other sources

  • City archive Mülheim an der Ruhr, inventory 884 (August Bungert collection)
  • City archive Mülheim an der Ruhr, holdings 1604 (estate August Bungert)
  • City archive Mülheim an der Ruhr, inventory 1550 No. 15 (Mülheim personalities)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Baptismal registers of the Lutheran parish, Mülheim an der Ruhr
  2. ↑ Entry on August Bungert in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
  3. ^ Max Chop: August Bungert , Berlin 1915

Web links

Commons : August Bungert  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bungert, August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bungert, Friedrich August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Mülheim an der Ruhr
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1915
Place of death Leutesdorf