About
Richard Dünser (*May 1, 1959, Bregenz) is an Austrian composer.
Life
Richard Dünser studied composition with Francis Burt at the Conservatory of his hometown and later at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. From 1985 to 1987 he perfected his compositional Talent with Hans Werner Henze at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, in 1987 he was a compositional fellow in Tanglewood / USA.
From 1987 he taught at the Innsbruck music education Department of the Mozarteum, Salzburg, and the Vorarlberg state Conservatory composition, 1991 he was associate University Professor (University Professor) of music theory at the Academy (today University) of music and performing arts in Graz, where he directs, since 2004, also a composition class Dünser was Composer in Residence of the Vienna Concert Association (the Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna Symphony) and with Christian Roscheck co-Initiator of the concert series of the same name in the Vienna Musikverein (Brahmssaal).
Among his most important works, which are interpreted by international Ensembles, conductors and soloists, are initially the orchestra piece "der Wanderer", which was commissioned by the "Neue Arbeiterzeitung" (1986) (premiered by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1988), the string quartet "Elegie. An Diotima "(world premiere 1987), the violin concerto premiered in 1993 at the Bregenz Festival, his version of the Schubert's"der Graf von Gleichen", which was premiered in 1997 as part of the Graz "Styriarte" and can be heard in a new version in 2003 at the Festspielhaus Bregenz, as well as the ensemble piece composed on behalf of the Klangforum Wien and premiered..breeding lilacs out of the dead land..."(1998). In recent years, the "Threnodie" for flute, clarinet and guitar (1999), "The Waste Land" for orchestra (2003, Bregenz followed festival), as well as the "Ophelia-music for guitar", "Muschelhut and Sandel Shoe" that was October 2003, by Alexander Swete in London for their world premiere, and a year later, also in the Wiener Konzerthaus was heard. At the Bregenz Festival 2006, his opera "Radek" received its first performance, an order in co-production with the Neue Oper Wien. Works for chamber orchestras and chamber ensemble, Lieder cycles as well as chamber music of various types complement Dünser's list of works.
Accolades
Numerous awards and commissions for compositions bear witness to Dünser's great success.
In 1988, he received the state scholarship for composition
1989 for his first string quartet the Austrian prize for music.
2000 the Ernst-und-Rosa-von-Dombrowski Foundation Prize for music
2010 Ernst Krenek Prize
Richard Dünser about his work
"In my work extra-musical plays an important role: autobiographical sketches, literary references, pictures, moods... They penetrate into the work and create with its inherent structures a tissue, a network of relationships and mutual influences.
Everything grows into one another and forms a larger superordinate whole, which can also close dialectically its opposite in itself, fractures, intransigence, fragmentation.
At the first hearing, very freely acting different shapes are often subject to an exact form Plan:
Developments, processes, atmospheric sound Islands, outbursts, stillness are incorporated into a multi-layered architecture of the composition.
Distance, mirror images, mirages, Fata Morganen, Reminded, Disappeared, re-leaked appearing out of dark Dreams and make the most of the mental landmarks, and sounds from the internal.
My music wants to reach out to the listeners and visionaries, achieve resonance and social relevance, win the audience as a Partner, without inciting it; reflect, mourn, but also evoke enthusiasm and understanding. My Ideal is that of a work of art that focuses and bundles all parameters of music (and sometimes of theatre, literature, fine arts) in an overall dramaturgy, summing up and interacting on a higher level.
For this purpose, the technique of composition must be a complex and the totality of means, but tamed by a will to unity in diversity, with the aim of subordinate all means to a dramaturgical whole.“ (R. D.)