Johannes Rövenstrunck

Johannes Rövenstrunck (born June 12, 1949 in Buchau ) is a German composer , music theorist and essayist .

Life

Johannes Rövenstrunck is the son of the composer Bernhard Rövenstrunck . From 1969 to 1974 he studied composition and piano at what was then the Hochschule für Musik in the former West Berlin . Between 1974 and 1985 he was mainly active as a jazz pianist , composer and band leader. From 1982 he gradually returned to composition, which from 1993 became his exclusive field of activity.

Works

Rövenstrunck's musical tonal language is characterized by the fact that he has developed the modality of music up to a free twelve-tone without foregoing melody or clear musical form (see the article on the theory of forms ). This means that everything is allowed and therefore nothing is forbidden. “I do not claim to have found a way out of the composing crisis. My work is my way out of this crisis… ” (Rövenstrunck in a documentary on the Dutch radio station KRO on December 1, 2000).

Piano works

• 10 sonatas
• some collections of preludes and studies
• 6 great poems
• Miniatures (a full, free-tonal piano school )
• 2 suites
• numerous smaller pieces

Musical theater

• Die Zauberlehrlinge (a satirical musical theater based on its own libretto )
• Satiricon (a satirical music theater based on its own rhymes )

Chamber music

• 3 sonatas for cello and piano
• 3 chamber concerts for different line-ups
• 2 string quartets
• 2 song cycles for different line-ups

Concerts

• 3 piano concerts (with large orchestra )
• Double concerto for cello, piano and orchestra

Orchestral music

• Sinfonia Catalana
• 154 Shakespeare - Sonnets in the adaptation of Karl Kraus

Folk music arrangements

• 20 Brazilian folk songs for two pianos
• 58 Catalan folk songs for piano solo

Scarlatti project

Rövenstrunck also stands up for forgotten or underrated music from the past. This is how he started his Scarlatti project. This includes a complete recording of Domenico Scarlatti's 555 sonatas and a book about these sonatas that can be downloaded from his website .

Fonts

The writings include "The Dodecatonic Music", a theoretical compilation and processing of Rövenstrunck's own musical tonal language. This paper, a material study, deals in detail with the modes, a rearrangement of the intervals , the possible three- to five-tone sounds (several hundred only in close proximity), and techniques that can lead to a musical recognizability and an emotional reception of this music such as for example the technology of the germ cell (music) . It also contains some satirical considerations of contemporary musical life.

At the end of 2007, Johannes Rövenstrunck founded the satirical online magazine "Der Rote Punkt".

Web links

• Website of the composer
• Website of his publisher
• Website with Rövenstrunck's investigation of Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas
• The satirical online magazine "Der Rote Punkt"