Dunicz Jan Józef, *3 May 1910 Lviv, †3 April 1945 Dora (near Nordhausen), Polish musicologist. He was educated in Lviv; in 1930 he graduated from the conservatoire (violin); from 1928 he studied musicology at Jan Kochanowski University under A. Chybiński (graduation in 1932, typescript of his thesis Studium o polonezie na podstawie zbiorów O. Kolberga held at the University Library in Poznań) and Polish studies (graduation in 1933, his thesis Muzyka w poezji polskiej XVI–XVIII wieku has been lost). During his studies, he took up a position at the Department of Musicology as a librarian and volunteer assistant; from 1934 to 1939, he was a senior assistant there (teaching musical acoustics, among other subjects). In 1937, he obtained his doctorate on the basis of a thesis on A. Jarzębski. From 1936, he was a reviewer for “Muzyka Polska”, where he published reports on musical life in Lviv. He also wrote programmes for Lviv radio. On 1 July 1939, he moved to Warsaw and took up the post of clerk in the Music Education Division of the Arts Department at the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education. He spent the occupation in the village of Budy Grabskie near Skierniewice and in Warsaw, where he was involved in clandestine teaching. He visited Lviv on several occasions, bringing back to Warsaw partisan songs arranged by Lviv composers. In 1944, he worked on a thesis about Chopin’s chamber music (unfinished, lost). In April 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo, imprisoned at the Pawiak prison, and in July 1944 deported to the concentration camp at Rogoźnica (Gross-Rosen); in March 1945, he was evacuated to the camp at Dora, where he died eight days before liberation by American troops.
Dunicz’s life’s work is a book on A. Jarzębski, the first monograph of its kind on an Old Polish composer and one of the outstanding achievements of Polish musicology in the interwar period. The assessment of Jarzębski’s work presented in it remains relevant to this day.
Literature: A. Chybiński Dr J.J. Dunicz (1910–1945), “Ruch Muzyczny” 1948 No. 8.
Studium w polonezie na podstawie zbiorów Oskara Kolberga, Lviv 1932
Premiery oper Belliniego we Lwowie, w: Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835). W stulecie śmierci, Lviv 1935
Z badań nad muzyką polską XVIII wieku, 1. Kasper Pyrszyński (1718–1758), “Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny” vol. 1, Warsaw 1935, 2. J. Szczurowski (ur. 1718), “Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny” vol. 2, Warsaw 1936
Do biografii Mikołaja Zieleńskiego, “Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny” vol. 2, Warsaw 1936
Bibliografia prac muzykologicznych dra Adolfa Chybińskiego, with M. Szczepańska, “Muzyka Polska” 1937 No. 1, supplemet
Pierwiastek narodowy w polskiej kolędzie, “Muzyka Polska” 1937 No. 12
Adam Jarzębski i jego “Canzoni e Concerti” (1627), Lviv 1938
August Tomasz i Maksymilian Braun, Polski Słownik Biograficzny vol. 2, 1936,
Wincenty Danek, Polski Słownik Biograficzny vol. 4, 1938
Józef Dulęba, Polski Słownik Biograficzny vol. 5, 1939–46
reviews of musicological publications in “Muzyka Polska”, “Kwartalnik Muzyczny” and “Nowe Czasy”
