einleitung und erster teil: rondo (1926)

Ti­tle of the album: Ursonate
Ti­tle: einleitung und erster teil: rondo (Track 01)
Publisher: Wergo, Mainz
Da­te: 1921-32, publ. 1994
Me­di­um: cd + booklet
Cover: after K. Schwitters

Between 1923 and 1932, Kurt Schwitters worked on the Sonate in Urlauten, also called Ursonate. It is a Dadaist sound poem that Schwitters continually changed and improved over almost ten years and recorded in its final form in 1932 at the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft Stuttgart.

The Ursonate was not released until 1993 on the Wergo record label in Mainz, but it is assumed that this recording was actually made by Kurt Schwitters' son Ernst, which has been confirmed by voice comparisons. In 1932, Kurt Schwitters published the score of the piece, designed by Jan Tschichold, in issue 24 of his magazine Merz.

Ursonate is in the tradition of Dada, to question everything outdated, traditional and naturalised in art and society, to break it up by suspending the principles of order, aesthetics and procedures. Thus Ursonate is also a rupture of the form of the sonata, of language, rhythm and tonality.

In Schwitters' work, the title Ursonate implies that it is the first sonata ever written and thus the basis on which all subsequent sonatas are built. To establish this connection, Schwitters chooses to structure the piece into four parts that correspond to the movements of a traditional, musical sonata as well as a singsong in the voice that suggests a melody. The lutes are thereby arranged in a completely freely invented but precisely sequenced form, which allows for a new rhythm and a new tonal experience.

The work is currently assumed to have a certain timelessness and topicality, as it can be seen as a formulation of the very difficult response to the turbulent social and political events of our time.

_PS