Ursonate

The Ursonata or Sonata in Urlauten is a Dadaist sound poem by Kurt Schwitters . The Ursonata was compiled in different versions between 1923 and 1932.

Recordings

The version from 1932 is available as an audio document, it was recorded on May 5, 1932 in Stuttgart by the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft . At the same time, the full score was published in issue 24 of Schwitters' magazine Merz . The renowned typographer Jan Tschichold designed the typesetting of the score.

The complete recording published on CD by WERGO in 1993 as “Original Performance by Kurt Schwitters” actually comes from Schwitters' son Ernst. After Hans Burkhard Schlichting from the SWR radio play editorial team had already drawn attention to this in a letter dated September 20, 1999, this was confirmed by a voice comparison report by Jens-Peter Köster, University of Trier.

Willem Breuker's label BVHAAST released an LP by the Dutch vocalist Jaap Blonk in 1986 . A copy of Tschichold's score served as an attachment. At Ernst Schwitters' instigation, almost the entire edition of this production was destroyed for copyright reasons. Under the pseudonym Reverof Zrem (please read backwards!) Blonk released another version of the Ursonate on cassette in 1993. The year of publication has been postponed to 1998 for unknown reasons. After the death of Ernst Schwitters in 1996, Blonk's version from 1986 was re-released on a double CD together with another version from 2003.

A copyright curiosity resulted from the activities of the Berlin concept artist Wolfgang Müller . In the spring of 1997, Müller traveled to the lonely Norwegian island of Hjertøya near Molde to look for traces of Kurt Schwitters, who from 1932 spent the summer months there in exile in Norway with his wife Helma and son Ernst. He found a tiny hut full of collages, lettering and painted plaster pillars from Kurt Schwitters that had been damaged over time, and documented these remains of Schwitters' activities with photographs. As a connoisseur of the Ursonata, it struck him that the starlings, as birds gifted for imitation, “recited” passages of the Ursonata in the vicinity of the hut. He recorded the birdsong and documented them on a CD, which he published together with the catalog during an exhibition of his photos in a Berlin gallery. Thereupon the Kiepenheuer Bühnenvertriebs GmbH asked him, as administrator of the performance rights, to inform him from whom he “had received the approval so that we can investigate the matter”. However, the matter was left on its own after Müller had announced that the Ursonata was not intoned on the CD with the "screaming of birds" and that GEMA had given him special permission to produce the CD as bird song recordings under the heading "Naturgeräusche" to register because it is not a composition of his.

Further versions of the original sonata were presented by the flutist Eberhard Blum , the vocalist Arnulf Appel, the reciter Bernd Rauschenbach , the bassoonist Alexander Voigt , and the Ensemble Schwindlinge (interpreters: Martin Ebelt, Silke Egeler-Wittmann, Thorsten Gietz).

A one-minute “short version” of the English jazz singer George Melly can be found on the compilation album “Miniatures” compiled by Morgan Fisher . The piece is entitled "Sounds that saved my life (Homage to KS)". Allegedly, by reciting this piece, Melly was able to ward off an attack by several drunkards.

Sound carrier

Kurt Schwitters: Kurt Schwitters , Philip Granville, Lords Gallery, London, private pressing, LP, 1958

Kurt Schwitters: Ursonate - Original Performance by Kurt Schwitters , Wergo WER 6304-2, Mainz, CD, 1993

Urwerk. Schwitters and others read Schwitters. MP3-CD (approx. 246 minutes) with accompanying book. Zweausendeins Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008 ISBN 9783861506744

Jaap Blonk : Ursonate - Sonate in Urlauten , BHVAAST 063, Amsterdam, LP, 1983

Reverof Zrem (Jaap Blonk), Ursonate , beef tallow, Cassette, 1993

Jaap Blonk: Ursonate , Basta 3091452, Aalsmar (NL), DoCD, 2003

Eberhard Blum : Ursonate , Hat ART CD 6109, Therwil (CH), CD, 1992

Arnulf Appel: Ursonate staged by Arnulf Appel and Eric Erfurth , LOGO 4764, LOGO Verlag Eric Erfurth, Obernburg am Main, CD, 1993

Bernd Rauschenbach : From the throat to the toe , Kein & Aber, Zurich, DoCD, 2003, ISBN 3-03-691142-1 .

Alexander Voigt : Ursonate , Conträr Musik 1344-2, Hamburg, CD, 2004

Die Schwindlinge: What a Beauty - The Ursonate and further phonetic poems , Wergo WER 63132, Mainz, CD, 2004

Wolfgang Müller : House music - Starlings from Hjertoya sing Schwitters , catalog and CD, Berlin 2000

ExVoCo: Kurt Schwitters: Lautpoesie , sound-rel CDs DRE 90103, 2002

Luke McGowan Robo Ursonate - a speech synthesis machine interpretation of Kurt Schwitters Ursonate Lost Frog LF067MP3, Tokyo 2006

Spiritus Noister: Ursonate , Hungaroton, EAN 5991813225924, CD, 2004

Pago Libre Sextet: "platzDADA!", Christoph Merian Verlag, CD, 2008

literature

Wolfgang Müller: House music - Starlings from Hjertøya sing Kurt Schwitters , Galerie Katzen 5, Berlin-Kreuzberg, exhibition catalog with CD, 2000
Wolfgang Müller: The Nightingale of Reykjavík , SuKuLTuR, series “ Beautiful Reading ” No. 25, Berlin, 2004, ISBN 3-937737-29-4

Individual evidence

^ Kurt Schwitters: The literary work. Volume 1: Manifestos and Critical Prose. Köln DuMont Schauberg, 1973, p. 214 ff ( limited preview in Google book search)
↑ SCHWITTRADIO. In: kunstradio.at. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
↑ SchwittCD. In: kunstradio.at. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
^ Schlütersche Verlagsgesellschaft mb H & Co .: The holdings of the Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation. In: schwitters-stiftung.de. May 5, 1932, accessed January 20, 2015 .
↑ Who speaks the Ursonata? In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 2008 ( online ).
↑ Katja Schmid: Copyright: Rinnzekete bee bee nnz rrk müüüü. In: zeit.de . June 21, 2001, accessed January 20, 2015 .
^ "Many people know George as a rumbustious jazz-singer, with an earthy vergence on the obscene stage presence. Perhaps not quite so many know him as an expert & champion of dada & surrealism - he was a personal friend of Magritte for many years. Perhaps those two roles come together on this track. It's a riproaring version of Kurt Schwitters' infamous dada poem, the 'Ur-Sonata' (usually 40 minutes long). The only other time George has performed it was when he was threatened by bottle-bearing hoodlums outside a Manchester club. Rather than fight or run (equally disastrous reactions) he calmly read this amazing poem to the horde of toughs. This completely flummoxed them - they slunk away. ”(From the liner notes of“ Miniatures ”).

Web links

[books-NQ5cAAAAMAAJ--1] Kurt Schwitters: The literary work. Volume 1: Manifestos and Critical Prose. Köln DuMont Schauberg, 1973, p. 214 ff ( limited preview in Google book search)

[2] SCHWITTRADIO. In: kunstradio.at. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .

[3] SchwittCD. In: kunstradio.at. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .

[4] Schlütersche Verlagsgesellschaft mb H & Co .: The holdings of the Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation. In: schwitters-stiftung.de. May 5, 1932, accessed January 20, 2015 .

[spiegel-55854286-5] Who speaks the Ursonata? In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 2008 ( online ).

[zeit-2001-06-21-6] Katja Schmid: Copyright: Rinnzekete bee bee nnz rrk müüüü. In: zeit.de . June 21, 2001, accessed January 20, 2015 .

[7] "Many people know George as a rumbustious jazz-singer, with an earthy vergence on the obscene stage presence. Perhaps not quite so many know him as an expert & champion of dada & surrealism - he was a personal friend of Magritte for many years. Perhaps those two roles come together on this track. It's a riproaring version of Kurt Schwitters' infamous dada poem, the 'Ur-Sonata' (usually 40 minutes long). The only other time George has performed it was when he was threatened by bottle-bearing hoodlums outside a Manchester club. Rather than fight or run (equally disastrous reactions) he calmly read this amazing poem to the horde of toughs. This completely flummoxed them - they slunk away. ”(From the liner notes of“ Miniatures ”).