Beside the Variations for 2 Waldhorns and Orchestra there shall be introduced a small work by Johann Gottfried Schuncke, the excellent first hornist at the Württemberg Court. It is an exercise for horn with piano accompaniment. It was common practice for such virtuoso studies to be composed with piano accompaniment, as in the horn method by Frédéric Duvernoy, where several etudes include a piano part or basso continuo. The same approach can be found in the work of Johann Rudolph Lewy, who published 12 Etudes for horn around 1830, which are still played today. These pieces also had piano accompaniment, but that version is unknown today.
The present work is very virtuoso, perhaps even suitable as an encore piece. It is structured as a theme with eight variations. Performed on the natural horn, the work gives a real sense of Johann Gottfried Schuncke's craftsmanship. The assumed date of composition is around 1820. The manuscript was saved in 1945 by his descendant Michael Schuncke, who maintains a very interesting family archive. Mr. Schuncke took several works from his family's estate with him, along with one early valve horn from 1830. The rest was lost in the final days of the war, when a fire broke out in the main archive in Crailsheim in 1945.
