Ludwig Schuncke
Encyclopedia
Ludwig Schuncke (21 December 18107 December 1834) was a German pianist and composer, and close friend of Robert Schumann
. His early promise was eclipsed by his death from tuberculosis
at the age of 23.
He was generally known as Ludwig, and that name also appears as Louis in some references. His surname appears as either Schuncke or Schunke.
in 1810. His father and first teacher Johann Gottfried Schuncke (1777–1840), and his uncle Johann Michael Schuncke (1778-1821), were both professional horn players.
He demonstrated his talents very early, and they were encouraged. In March 1822, aged only 11, he performed Johann Nepomuk Hummel
's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 85
, under the direction of Louis Spohr
. He then went on a concert tour of Germany. Carl Maria von Weber
expressed his approval of Schuncke’s early compositions.
In 1828, he was one of the four pianists who played Henri Bertini
's transcription of Beethoven
's Seventh Symphony
for eight hands, the others being Bertini himself, Franz Liszt
and Sowinsky.
He went to Paris
for study, where his main teachers were Friedrich Kalkbrenner
, Anton Reicha
and Henri Herz
, and where he also had friendships with people such as Hector Berlioz
, Sigismond Thalberg
and Johann Peter Pixis
. In Paris, he made his living by demonstrating Duport pianos, and he also lived in Duport's household. After completing his studies, he returned to Germany. In Stuttgart
, he made the acquaintance of Frédéric Chopin
after hearing him perform his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor
. Schuncke dedicated his Capriccio in C minor, Op.10, to Chopin. He then moved to Vienna
, Prague
and Dresden
, appearing in concert, before finally settling in Leipzig
in December 1833. He lived in a boarding house and his room was next door to that of Robert Schumann
, whose very close friend he became. Schuncke was one of the co-founders of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
, and one of its early contributors, under the pseudonym "Jonathan". He was also a member of Schumann's Davidsbund.
He appeared as soloist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus
on 27 January 1834. In one article, Schumann favourably compared the playing of the emerging Franz Liszt to that of Ludwig Schuncke.
Schuncke dedicated his Grande Sonate in G minor, Op. 3, to Schumann, who greatly admired the work, and in turn dedicated his Toccata in C major, Op. 7, to Schuncke on its publication in 1834. In a letter dated 4 September 1834, Schumann wrote that his whole wealth could be summed up in three names: Henriette Voigt, Ernestine von Fricken and Ludwig Schuncke.
Schumann's Carnaval
, Op. 9, had its origin in a set of variations on a Sehnsuchtswalzer by Franz Schubert
. The catalyst for the variations may have been a work for piano and orchestra on the same theme by Schuncke (his Op. 14). Schumann felt that Schuncke's heroic treatment was an inappropriate reflection of the tender nature of the Schubert piece, so he set out to approach his variations in a more intimate way, for piano solo. He worked on the piece in 1833 and 1834. The work was never completed, however, but he did re-use the opening 24 measures for the opening of Carnaval.
Schuncke helped Schumann through his crisis of 1833-34, in which he had a serious depressive illness leading to a suicide attempt, and his brother and sister-in-law both died. Schumann in turn nursed Schuncke through his own final illness. Ludwig Schuncke died on 7 December 1834, two weeks before his 24th birthday, of tuberculosis
. He is buried on the old Johannesfriedhof in Leipzig. Schumann forever after kept Schuncke's death bed portrait in his own study, in a gallery of pictures hung above his piano.
.
was the first to perform Schuncke's Grande Sonate in G minor, Op. 3, which has also been recorded by Mario Patuzzi and Gregor Weichert. (His name is shown on Patuzzi's and Weichert's albums as "Christian L. Schunke" and "Louis Schuncke" respectively.)
His song Gretchen am Spinnrad is also recorded.
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
. His early promise was eclipsed by his death from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
at the age of 23.
He was generally known as Ludwig, and that name also appears as Louis in some references. His surname appears as either Schuncke or Schunke.
Biography
Ludwig Schuncke was born in KasselKassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
in 1810. His father and first teacher Johann Gottfried Schuncke (1777–1840), and his uncle Johann Michael Schuncke (1778-1821), were both professional horn players.
He demonstrated his talents very early, and they were encouraged. In March 1822, aged only 11, he performed Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...
's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 85
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Hummel)
Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 85 in A minor was written in 1816 and published in Vienna in 1821 . Unlike his earlier piano concerti, which closely followed the model of Mozart's, the A minor concerto, like the B minor Concerto Op...
, under the direction of Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...
. He then went on a concert tour of Germany. Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
expressed his approval of Schuncke’s early compositions.
In 1828, he was one of the four pianists who played Henri Bertini
Henri Bertini
Henri Jérôme Bertini was a French classical composer and pianist.- Life :Henri Jérôme Bertini was born in London on October 28, 1798, but his family returned to Paris six months later. He received his early musical education from his father and his brother, a pupil of Muzio Clementi...
's transcription of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Seventh Symphony
Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...
for eight hands, the others being Bertini himself, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and Sowinsky.
He went to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
for study, where his main teachers were Friedrich Kalkbrenner
Friedrich Kalkbrenner
Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner was a German pianist, composer, piano teacher and piano manufacturer who spent most of his life in England and France. Before the advent of Frédéric Chopin, Sigismond Thalberg and Franz Liszt, Kalkbrenner was by many considered to be the foremost pianist in...
, Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Reicha is now best remembered for his substantial early contribution to the wind quintet literature and his role as a teacher – his pupils included Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz...
and Henri Herz
Henri Herz
Henri Herz was a pianist and composer, Austrian by birth, and French by domicile.Herz was born Heinrich Herz in Vienna...
, and where he also had friendships with people such as Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
, Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
and Johann Peter Pixis
Johann Peter Pixis
Johann Peter Pixis was a German pianist and composer born in Mannheim, Germany.He lived in Paris between 1825 and 1845, where he worked as a concert pianist...
. In Paris, he made his living by demonstrating Duport pianos, and he also lived in Duport's household. After completing his studies, he returned to Germany. In Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, he made the acquaintance of Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
after hearing him perform his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Chopin)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, is a piano concerto written by Frédéric Chopin in 1830. It was first performed on 11 October of that year, in Warsaw, with the composer as soloist, during one of his "farewell" concerts before leaving Poland....
. Schuncke dedicated his Capriccio in C minor, Op.10, to Chopin. He then moved to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, appearing in concert, before finally settling in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
in December 1833. He lived in a boarding house and his room was next door to that of Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, whose very close friend he became. Schuncke was one of the co-founders of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was a music magazine published in Leipzig, co-founded by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke...
, and one of its early contributors, under the pseudonym "Jonathan". He was also a member of Schumann's Davidsbund.
He appeared as soloist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, Germany. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics. The first Gewandhaus was built in 1781 by architect Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe. The second opened on 11 December 1884, and was destroyed in the...
on 27 January 1834. In one article, Schumann favourably compared the playing of the emerging Franz Liszt to that of Ludwig Schuncke.
Schuncke dedicated his Grande Sonate in G minor, Op. 3, to Schumann, who greatly admired the work, and in turn dedicated his Toccata in C major, Op. 7, to Schuncke on its publication in 1834. In a letter dated 4 September 1834, Schumann wrote that his whole wealth could be summed up in three names: Henriette Voigt, Ernestine von Fricken and Ludwig Schuncke.
Schumann's Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...
, Op. 9, had its origin in a set of variations on a Sehnsuchtswalzer by Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
. The catalyst for the variations may have been a work for piano and orchestra on the same theme by Schuncke (his Op. 14). Schumann felt that Schuncke's heroic treatment was an inappropriate reflection of the tender nature of the Schubert piece, so he set out to approach his variations in a more intimate way, for piano solo. He worked on the piece in 1833 and 1834. The work was never completed, however, but he did re-use the opening 24 measures for the opening of Carnaval.
Schuncke helped Schumann through his crisis of 1833-34, in which he had a serious depressive illness leading to a suicide attempt, and his brother and sister-in-law both died. Schumann in turn nursed Schuncke through his own final illness. Ludwig Schuncke died on 7 December 1834, two weeks before his 24th birthday, of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. He is buried on the old Johannesfriedhof in Leipzig. Schumann forever after kept Schuncke's death bed portrait in his own study, in a gallery of pictures hung above his piano.
Schuncke's music
Although their approaches sometimes differed, Schuncke and Schumann influenced each other to a significant degree. This can be seen in the following example, where an excerpt from Schuncke's Grande Sonate in G minor could easily be played alongside an except from Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minorPiano Concerto (Schumann)
The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54, is a famous Romantic concerto by Robert Schumann, completed in 1845.Schumann had begun several piano concerti before this one: In 1828, he had begun one in E-flat major; from 1829-31 he worked on one in F major, and in 1839, he wrote one movement of a concerto...
.
Recorded legacy
Jozef De BeenhouwerJozef De Beenhouwer
Jozef De Beenhouwer is a Belgian pianist, music teacher and musicologist.-Biography:His first teacher, with whom he started at the age of five, was his paternal grandfather. Even as a child and adolescent, he became acquainted with a vast repertoire, and developed a special preference for music...
was the first to perform Schuncke's Grande Sonate in G minor, Op. 3, which has also been recorded by Mario Patuzzi and Gregor Weichert. (His name is shown on Patuzzi's and Weichert's albums as "Christian L. Schunke" and "Louis Schuncke" respectively.)
His song Gretchen am Spinnrad is also recorded.
Piano solo
- Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 1
- Variations sur une thème quasi Fantaisie brilliant original, in E-flat major, Op. 2
- Grande Sonata in G minor, Op. 3 (1832, dedicated to Robert SchumannRobert SchumannRobert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
) - Fantasie brillante in E major, Op. 5
- Allegro Passionato in A minor, Op. 6
- Divertissement brilliant, Op. 7
- 1er Caprice in C major, Op. 9 (dedicated to Clara WieckClara SchumannClara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
) - 2de Caprice in C minor, Op. 10 (dedicated to Frédéric ChopinFrédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
) - Rondeau brilliant in E flat major, Op.11
- Divertissement brilliant sur des aires allemenades, in B flat major, Op. 12
- 2 Pièces caractéristiques in B flat minor and C minor, Op. 13
- Rondeau in D major, Op.15
- Air suisse varié
- Six Preludes
- Rondino précédé d'une Introduction
- Adagio and Rondo in G major
- Capriccio
- Due Divertimenti
- Fantasy
- Marcia funebre
- Six Preludes
- Rondino précédé d'une Introduction
- Variations VII
- Quick Waltz
Piano Duet
- Petit Rondeau in C major
- Rondo brilliant in G major
- Deux Pièces caractéristiques pour piano à quatre mains, Op.13 (published 1834):
- No. 1 in B minor, Andante con moto
- No. 2 in C minor, Presto
Piano and orchestra
- Variations brillantes sur la Sehnsuchtswalzer of Franz SchubertFranz SchubertFranz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
in A flat major, Op. 14 - Piano Concerto (lost)
Chamber music
- Duo Concertante for piano and horn
- Petites variations for piano and violin in C major
Vocal works
- Mother's love
- With golden string full of sounds, 3 voices and piano
- The slumbering love
- Four Songs
- Spring song
- The young man at the brook
- The child's wish
- Gretchen's song
- Seven Songs
- Lullaby
- Song of the Shepherdess
- Craving
- The Bethe ends
- First Loss
- Erlkönig
- Farewell
- Five songs, Op. 8
- Gretchen's song
- The expectation
- The arbor
- I want to tell you well
- The young man at the stream