‘...he was a man, an artist, a friend without equal’, Robert Schumann wrote on February 6, 1835, to Theodor Töpken, a lawyer friend in Bremen. He was referring to Ludwig Schuncke (1810–1834), pianist, composer, and almost of the same age co-founder of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Schuncke, although never entirely forgotten as a minor figure in the biography of his famous friend, has only recently come back to the attention of the music world, thanks to the renewed interest in the environment of the great Romantic masters that has been slowly reawakened over the last 40 years. [...]
Only three chamber music works by Ludwig Schuncke have survived: a Duo concertant (Grand Duo) in F major for piano and horn , a Sonata in C minor for piano and violin , and the ‘Light Little Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je Maman”’ for piano and violin, published here for the first time. All three works, which still show strong classical influences, were likely written during Schuncke’s years in Stuttgart (1815–1827 and 1830–1832). Unlike his later piano works, printed during his final years and shortly after his death, these chamber pieces are completely free of hollow and pompous brilliance. As works of a highly gifted young pianist and composer, whose earliest surviving compositions were written at the age of eight, they exhibit remarkable originality, youthful freshness, and profound technical skills. This is especially true of the ‘Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je Maman”’ for piano and violin, which were probably inspired by Mozart’s famous variations for piano on the same theme (KV 265/300e). However, Schuncke did not fall into pale imitation or slavish stylistic mimicry. What stands out is his playful and ironic treatment of the extremely simple theme, which appears in a completely different light in each of the five variations, at times becoming almost unrecognisable. Even the six-bar introduction, which briefly inflates with dramatic intensity, stands in a nearly grotesque contrast to the initially two-part theme. Two of the variations are set in a minor key, with the fifth and final variation (Più lento, con espressione) emerging as a free, quiet paraphrase that elegantly shifts between C major and C minor.
From the foreword by Joachim Draheim
