Schwitters: Ursonate und andere konsequente dichtung

Kurt Schwitters’ “Sonate in Urlauten” [Sonata in Primal Sounds] is the prototypical work at the border between speech and music. The concise title of the work alone forges a suggestive link between language material and the musical form of the sonata; the "Ursonate" almost proverbially stands for sound poetry. For Schwitters, who was actively involved in promoting his sound-poetical opus magnum, even as his own interpreter, it was difficult to imagine that his work could survive without him at all. Nevertheless, the "Ursonate", more than any other work of this genre, reached an unparalleled fame.