Professional activity: Composers, Interpreters, Authors
Biography
* 28. 02. 1948.
Born in Aarau (Switzerland) in 1948. Studied music and literature in Basel, Paris, London, Berlin and New York. 1981 Schönberg Prize winner for piano. Internationally active as a soloist and chamber musician. Repertoire focus: early 20th century. First recordings of Berg, Reger, Schreker, Webern, Zemlinsky. Keen interest in fortepiano and clavichord. Piano class at the Basel University of Music until 2012. Masterclasses on four continents. Book publications on Schönberg and Schumann. jjd@dunki.ch
www.dunki.ch
Work list
Quién, quién, naturaleza.... (1971)
Instrumentation: for mezzo-soprano and piano (or viola, violoncello)
Texts: J.R.Jimenez
Duration: 2' 00" Manuscript
Knots (1973)
Instrumentation: for mezzo-soprano, tenor, oboe and clarinet
Adaptation of the 1st movement from "Kammerstück II".
Duration: 1' 00" Manuscript
Kammerstück II (1985)
Instrumentation: for horn, piano and thirteen instruments (2.(pic,afl).2(obda,ca).2(Ebcl).bcl.asx(ssx).1/1.1.1.1/pf(clavichord))
The solo horn is scored also for an authentic 19th century invention-horn, and the solo piano part (normal tuning) also plays a hammer piano (five octaves F - f4, sounding a quarter tone lower). The second piano in the ensemble is tuned a quarter tone lower. A discourse with Robert Schumann's music.
Instrumentation: for soprano, clarinet (also Ebcl, bcl), violoncello (also viola), piano (also clavichord) and DAT play-back
Texts: Fernando Pessoa
Eight scenes from the poems of Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). The Soprano sings and recites in Portuguese, German and French. Very demanding for all performers.
Seis caprichos sobre poemas de Luis Alberto Crespo (2004)
Instrumentation: for soprano
Duration: 8' 00" Manuscript
Etude IV (2004)
Instrumentation: for harpsichord or grand piano
Duration: 4' 00" Manuscript
Zwei Studien (2 studies) (2004)
Instrumentation: for clavichord
Duration: 3' 00" Manuscript
Seis caprichos sobre poemas de Luis Alberto Crespo (2004-2005)
Instrumentation: for 3 singers
Trio version of the solo.
Duration: 5' 00" Manuscript
incompletamente (2004)
Instrumentation: for soprano/tenor, flute/alto flute, oboe/oboe d'amore, clarinet in A/E-flat, guitar, clavichord/celesta, violoncello, percussion(1)
Texts: Juan Gelman
Duration: 17' 00" Manuscript
Trois plaintes (2004)
Instrumentation: for solo voice
Duration: 5' 00" Manuscript
¿oíste/corazón? (Hörst du, mein Herz?) (2005-2006)
Musical reflection over a poem by Juan Gelman
Instrumentation: for flute/alto flute, bass clarinet, viola, guitar, percussion and electronic tape
Juan Gelman, born in 1930 the child of Ukranian-Jewish parents in Buenos Aires, fled in 1975 from the Argentinean military dictatorship via Rome to Mexico where he still lives today. His poetry is among my strongest impressions of South American literature. Gelman wrote the poem 'otras partes' in Rome in 1981. It commemorates the dead and the haunted of the military dictatorship during the seventies in Argentina and conceptualises a continued life for the escapees.
I did not want to simply musicalise Gelman's poem, which is why I left the voice of the poet to the poet himself in a reading from April 4, 2000 in Montevideo, where his voice sounds over a loud speaker. Three layers of music on the clavichord, the most reticent and vulnerable of all keyboard instruments, accompanies the voice: a continuous improvisation layer in eight different patterns (mostly generated directly on the chords of the instrument), strewn fragments and a "musicalisation" of the ten verses of the poem on the clavichord.
Cornelius Bohn produced the electronic tape for '¿oíste/corazón' in February and March 2006 at the electronic studio of the Basel Academy of Music.
For this purpose five instrumentalists play short, notated and improvised interjections each "reciting" the poem in their own way. Again there is a thread: my piece for wood flute and guitar from 1991/94 'Nulla dies'. During composition I feel less like a composer and more like carpet weaver. The most difficult task was to bring together the free-floating elements in a time based order within the immense room opened up by the poem. The calm voice of the poet is often in contrast to the restlessness of the instruments. I understand the heterogeneous whole as an attempt, in the sense of Gelman, to give a voice to those who are no longer able to speak.
Duration: 11' 00" Manuscript
Mauerstück (2005)
Instrumentation: for 3 female speakers/singers
Texts: Jean-Jacques Dünki
Duration: 3' 00" Manuscript
Ingrimm (2005)
Instrumentation: for 3 female speakers/singers, flute, oboe d'amore, bass clarinet, viola and percussion
Texts: Gebrüder Grimm
Duration: 14' 00" Manuscript
Un retour de Cythère (2006-2007)
Conte fantastique
Instrumentation: for 15 instruments (1.1.1.1/1.1.1.0/perc/pf/1.1.1.1.1) and recorded tape
"My composition for chamber ensemble with fifteen instrumentalists and recorded tape is a journey of sound through an imaginary Aegean sea. My fictional anti-hero brings back a single trunk containing poems by Baudelaire, Heine and Lord Byron from Kythera, immortalised in Watteaus' painting and known as the "Island of Love" since antiquity. Thus, in my "fantastic tale", the poetic word is as omnipresent as the sound of the waves and the wind, sometimes mumbled, other times clear and comprehensible as it emanates from the loudspeakers, but mostly it is integrated into the instrumental play. For the background I took a fine carpet woven out of recorded clavichord pieces and improvisations. This composition contains "constants" and "variables", that is to say aleatoric sound elements. The excerpts in this piece (rarely identifiable) pertain to earlier works by myself, however, they are also reverences to great influences. I would compare the whole piece to an archipelago of islands and islets. It was a commissioned piece for the "Amplitudes" festival in La Chaux-de-Fonds and celebrated its word premiere on May 9, 2007 by the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain under the baton of Pierre-Alain Monot."