Friedrich August Bungert (14 March 1845 – 26 October 1915) was a Germanoperacomposer and poet.
Bungert was born inMülheim. His unusual musical talent was noticed and nurtured at high school by his teacher, Heinrich Kufferath, the brother of the composerFerdinand Kufferath. Bungert's father, a wealthy merchant and an eminent member of the community, was unenthusiastic about his son's ambitions and considered his son's musical ability to be an "ill-fated inclination". He would have preferred his son to undertake a career as a merchant or a doctor. Only his mother supported him, but she died when August Bungert was ten. In the aftermath of her death, the conflict between father and son became more intense.
Upon finishing high school at 16, Bungert fled toCologne. He attended the Conservatorium there and was taught by Ferdinand Kufferath, his high school teacher's brother. In Cologne, he was discovered by the composerMax Bruch's sister, who had been charged by the Paris Conservatorium with finding a talented musician to be educated in Paris.
Without hesitation, I agreed. Before 1866, Paris was a cultural centre, which every aspiring musician must visit in order to gain recognition
— August Bungert,Der Bund - monthly publication for theBungert-Bund 9 July 1915
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 asBerlioz,Auber andRossini, 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 1869 he took a position as achorus-master, and in 1870 as the director of an orchestra inBad Kreuznach. Although he composed more in Kreuznach - the production of his pieceHutten und Sickingen during the unveiling of a monument was a big success - he was obviously not satisfied.
In 1874 he moved to Berlin, where he continued his studies underFriedrich 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 byJohannes Brahms andRobert Volkmann who were the judges of the competition. According to Bungert, he composed the piece as he lay in bed feverish with appendicitis. The piano quartet was performed very successfully inConstantinople (nowIstanbul) in 1913.
Bungert travelled to Italy with the prize money, ostensibly for health reasons, but probably from a deep yearning for Italian life, moving toPegli, nearGenoa. Here he metGiuseppe Verdi, and his neighbour was thephilosopherFriedrich Nietzsche, with whom he would form a strong friendship. In Pegli he wrote the operaAurora, which premiered inLeipzig in 1884.
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. Through Sylva he finally gained the yearned-for access to the highest nobility. Bungert was a regular guest in the royal Wied castles and in the Swedish and Rumanian royal courts.
In 1890, Sylva gave him an expensiveBechstein grand piano, and in 1894 she transferred the ownership of a house to him. The house was situated on theRhine inLeutesdorf, had a large garden and was renovated by the Cologne architectCarl Schauppmeyer in theIonic style. The villa is still considered an adornment in the plane-tree-lined Rheinallee (today August-Bungert-Allee). Bungert furnished the house with expensive furniture, works of art and memorabilia. He celebrated his greatest artistic triumphs during this time, especially with the setting of Sylva's poetry to music and his Rhine-songs, which he often composed sitting at his regular table in the Rhine garden of the Leyscher Hof Hotel in Leutesdorf, for which he mostly wrote the texts himself.
Sylva founded an organization called theBungert-Bund to promote his music. Apart from a comic opera calledDie Studenten von Salamanca (The Students of Salamanca), he concentrated on two epictetralogies based on theIliad and theOdyssey entitledHomerische Welt (The Homeric World). The first part,The Iliad (unfinished), was divided intoAchilles andClytemnestra (with three further sections planned). The second part, which was completed and performed in Dresden between 1898 and 1903, wasThe Odyssey, which was divided intoCirce,Nausicaa,Odysseus' Return andOdysseus' Death, and was performed more than 100 times in the rest of Europe.
During this time, Bungert was considered to be the antithesis ofWagner - 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 aBayreuth-style theatre inBad Godesberg.
Bungert was awarded a professorship at the Leipzig University in 1911 and gave several lectures about his work there. In 1912, the then sophisticated spa townWiesbaden started a Bungert-Festival which engendered much interest.
August Bungert died, following a long illness, on 26 October 1915 in his house in Leutesdorf.[1] As a Lutheran Christian he was not permitted (according to his own wishes) to be buried in the cemetery in staunchly Catholic Leutesdorf. His grave is in the cemetery of theFeldkirche in Neuwied. (The Bungert house in Leutesdorf is currently a private residence and not open to the public.)
His list of works includes 362 songs, many of which were based on texts by Carmen Sylva, while he wrote most of the words to his Rhine-songs himself. His greatest work was the operatic tetralogy "Die Homerische Welt" (The Homeric World), inspired by Wagner'sDer 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.
