Rainer Kunad

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Rainer Kunad (born October 24, 1936 in Chemnitz ; † July 17, 1995 in Reutlingen ) was a German composer .

Rainer Kunad in Dresden 1992

Life

After graduating from high school in 1955/1956, Rainer Kunad studied choir and ensemble conducting at the Dresden Conservatory and then until 1959 composition with Fidelio F. Finke and Ottmar Gerster at the Leipzig Music Academy . From 1960 to 1974 he directed the drama music at the Staatstheater Dresden and from 1978 to 1984 he was honorary professor for composition at the Musikhochschule Dresden . From 1971 he also worked at the German State Opera in Berlin . Since 1974 Kunad was a full member of the Academy of the Arts of the GDR . In 1982/83 Kunad was a visiting professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

In October 1984, Kunad and his family moved from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany and in 1985 settled in Tübingen. In the same year he submitted an application to the responsible authorities for release from GDR citizenship , which was granted. He spent the last years of his life as a freelance artist in Tübingen .

Kunad composed piano pieces, chamber and orchestral music, oratorios and operas (including Bill Brook based on a story by Wolfgang Borchert and Der Meister und Margarita based on the novel by Michail Bulgakow ). Musically he was initially under the influence of the early Stravinsky and Carl Orff . Later he turned to the twelve-tone technique and aleatoric . From the 1970s he gave up twelve-tone technology in favor of serial music . From the 1980s onwards, Kunad's work was thematically influenced by religious subjects and Christian mysticism , which led to a conflict with the prevailing ideology in the GDR, but did not generate the desired echo in West Germany either.

Kunad's estate (around 10,000 pages of autograph scores, bundles of sketches, programs, press products and professional correspondence) is kept in the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden .

Works

Opera:

  • Bill Brook (1959/60, libretto by Kunad based on Wolfgang Borchert's novella Billbrook ; premiere of Landesbühnen Sachsen Radebeul 1965)
  • The castle (1961/62)
  • Old Fritz (1962/63, libretto by Kunad based on Rolf Schneider's play Der Mann aus England ; first performance Radebeul 1965)
  • Maître Pathelin or The Mutton Comedy (1968, world premiere at Dresden State Opera 1969)
  • Sabellicus (1972/73, world premiere Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin 1974)
  • Lithuanian pianos (1974, first performance Dresden 1976)
  • The egg dance (first performance Bautzen 1975)
  • Vincent (1975/76, world premiere Dresden 1979)
  • Amphitryon (first performance Berlin 1984)
  • The Master and Margarita (1982/83, world premiere in Karlsruhe 1986)
  • The dream (1993, world premiere in Hagen 2000)

Ballet:

  • Me: Orpheus (1964/65)
  • But we call love living peace (1970, world premiere in Dresden 1972)
  • Münchhausen (1977/78, world premiere Weimar and Kassel 1981)

Symphony:

  • Symphony 64 (1964)
  • Symphony II (1966/67)
  • Sinfonietta (1969, world premiere Schwerin)

Concert:

  • Concerto for piano and orchestra (1969, world premiere Dresden 1971)
  • Concerto for harpsichord, piano, jonika, celesta and orchestra (1970)
  • Concerto for organ, two string orchestras and timpani (1971, world premiere in Dresden 1971)

Orchestral music:

  • Sinfonia variatione (1959)
  • Pathelin Portrait (1974)
  • Divertimento for orchestra (1968)
  • Antiphonie (1971, world premiere in Frankfurt / O.)
  • Quadrophony (1973)
  • Szène concertante (1975, first performance Dresden 1976)

Chamber music:

  • Aphorisms (1956/57)
  • 1st string quartet (1957)
  • Concertante piano trio (1958)
  • Notturno for solo cello (1958)
  • Grande Overture for two pianos
  • Music for wind instruments (1965)
  • Concerto per Archi (1966)
  • String Quartet II (1967)
  • Commedia "Marriage" (1969)
  • Pneumatika for accordion solo (1971)
  • Duomix (1973)
  • Miniatures for organ and percussion (1977/78)
  • Mozart paraphrase
  • Fantasy for organ
  • Rimstinger Advent music
  • Sonatina for piano (1992)

Vocal music:

  • Shadowland Streams, chants based on poems by Johannes Bobrowski (1966)
  • Melody I had lost, chants based on verses by Günther Deicke (1968)
  • Von der Kocherie, A Culinary Praise Song (1970)
  • Pro novo, after Dante Alighieri (1973)
  • Metai, based on texts by Kristijonas Donelaitis (The Year, The Seasons; 1980 performed at the Dresden Music Festival)
  • Klopstock Ode (world premiere in Dresden)
  • Bobrowski motet (first performance Berlin 1981)
  • Get honey
  • Dona nobis (first performance Dresden 1992)
  • With the breath of his mouth, Christ and the Antichrist (1988/89)

Oratorio:

Spiritual oratorio:

  • Solomonic Voices (1982, world premiere Dresden 1984)
  • The Gospel of Thomas (1984/85, world premiere in Kiel 1987)
  • Trilogy of the revelation of God:
1st part: Jovian, the seer (1985, world premiere Mannheim 1987)
Part 2: The Seer of Patmos (1985/86, first performance Karlsruhe 1988)
Part 3: The New Jerusalem (1986, world premiere in Sindelfingen 1989)
  • The Gate of Joy (1987, world premiere in Stuttgart and Tübingen 1990)

Mystery play:

  • The people of Babel (1983/84, world premiere in Munich 1986)
  • Cosmic Advent, play about the second coming of the Lord (1987, world premiere in Ulm and Munich 1991)

Spiritual symphony:

  • Symphony No. 3: Symphony of Divine Peace (1986/87, first performance Darmstadt 1989)
  • Symphony No. 9: The Seven Seals (1993, world premiere in Reutlingen 1993)
  • Symphony No. 12: Mount Zion (1994, first performance Dresden 1996)

Prices

literature

  • Kristina Brazaitis: From Lituania infelix to the Enlightenment and afterwards: The 'opification' of Bobrowski's “Lithuanian Claviere” by Gerhard Wolf and Rainer Kunad . In: Lietuviu Kultūros Institutas. Lithuanian Cultural Institute (ed.): German and Lithuanian literature. An encounter . Lampertheim (LKI) 2003, pp. 29-52.
  • Siglind Bruhn : Christ as an opera hero in the late 20th century . Edition Gortz, Waldkirch 2004, ISBN 3-938095-03-2 , pp. 189-208.
  • Siglind Bruhn: Jesus and Satan in Moscow. Three late-20th-century operas on Bulgakov's novel . In: The Journal of Music and Meaning. 4 (winter 2007), section 2 (online) ( download )
  • Sabine Kreter: "Everything on Hope" - Bobrowski settings by Rainer Kunad. Dissertation 1993. Waxmann, Münster / New York 1994, ISBN 3-89325-207-X . (Excerpts online)
  • Thomas Kupsch: New Music at the Dresden State Theater. The composers Rainer Kunad, Thomas Hertel and Eckehard Mayer as directors of drama music in the last third of the 20th century . In: Herrmann, Matthias (Ed.): Dresden and advanced music in the 20th century . Laaber 2004, ISBN 3-89007-511-8 , pp. 201-210.
  • Éva Pintér: “Da pacem, Domine” - compositional approaches . In: Hartmut Lück, Dieter Senghaas (ed.): From audible peace. (edition suhrkamp 2401). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-12401-3 , pp. 326-343. (on R. Kunad, p. 339f.)
  • Günter Pistorius: "Write with confidence in God". A documentation of the spiritual work of Rainer Kunad . In: Matthias Herrmann (ed.): The Dresden church music in the 19th and 20th centuries. (Music in Dresden, 3). Laaber 1998, ISBN 3-89007-331-X , pp. 531-545.
  • Eberhard Schmidt: Analysis: Rainer Kunad, Vincent . In: Herrmann, Matthias (Ed.): Dresden and advanced music in the 20th century . Laaber 2004, ISBN 3-89007-511-8 , pp. 186-190.
  • Frigga Schnakenburg: Rainer Kunad's musical stage creation and his "Lithuanian pianos". Attempt to present an explanation taking into account the composer's aesthetic views on the opera for the development of socialist music theater . Thesis. Leipzig 1977.
  • Hans-Jürgen Schneider: Passion for music theater. A memory of Rainer Kunad. In: [t] akte , No. 1/2016.
  • Ursula Stürzbecher: Composers in the GDR. 17 conversations . Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1979, ISBN 3-8067-0803-7 . (on R. Kunad: from p. 109)
  • Kent Howard Skinner: Voices of Solomon and The Gospel of Thomas. Two oratorios by Rainer Kunad . Dissertation. University of Texas, Ann Arbor, Michigan / Austin 1993.
  • Rolf Stabel: IM dancer. The dance and the state security . Schott, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-7957-0165-9 . (on R. Kunad, pp. 30–57: We call love living peace. A (actually too short) dance history of the GDR).
  • Heike Sauer: Dream, Reality, Utopia: German Music Theater 1961–1971 as a mirror of political and social aspects of its time . Dissertation 1993. Waxmann, Münster / New York 1994, ISBN 3-89325-235-5 . (Excerpts online)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Dieter Härtwig : The Dresden composer Rainer Kunad was born 80 years ago. In: Dresdner Latest News . October 24, 2016, accessed July 15, 2018 .
  2. ^ "GDR" composer Rainer Kunad stays in the West. Article of May 28, 1985 in the Hamburger Abendblatt , accessed on November 10, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b Heike Sauer: Dream, Reality, Utopia. German music theater 1961–1971 as a mirror of political and social aspects of its time. Waxmann, Münster / New York 1994, p. 141.
personal data
SURNAME Kunad, Rainer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1995
Place of death Reutlingen