Kurt Schwitters’ Sound Sonata

Kurt Schwitters’ URSONATE is the most famous sound poem of the twentieth century. This incomparable masterpiece, inspired by the genius of the German Dada movement and steeped in Schwitters’ quirky wit and humour, astounds audiences even today. Schwitters was a visionary all-rounder whose dramatic flight from the Nazis eventually led him to Edinburgh’s Leith Docks in mid-1940. As an especially fitting tribute, Florian Kaplick’s dazzling and internationally acclaimed performance of the URSONATE will be introduced by Richard Demarco, the renowned Edinburgh artist and art promoter.

Dates:

6-7, 9-13 Aug

Time:

19:00

Duration:

1hr

Price:

£9 / £6

Venue:

Red Lecture Theatre

Tickets:

boxoffice@summerhall.co.uk

Further Information:

Schwitters on his Ursonata:

- The Sonata consists of four movements, of an overture and a finale. You yourself will certainly feel the rhythm, slack or strong, high or low, taut or loose. To explain in detail the variations and compositions of the themes would be tiresome in the end and detrimental to the pleasure of reading and listening, and after all I’m not a professor.”

- The fourth movement, long-running and quick, comes as a good exercise for the reader’s lungs, in particular because the endless repeats, if they are not to seem too uniform, require the voice to be seriously raised most of the time. In the finale I draw your attention to the deliberate return of the alphabet up to a. You feel it coming and expect the a impatiently. But twice over it stops painfully on the b…

- The letters applied are to be pronounced as in German. A single vowel sound is short… Letters, of course, give only a rather incomplete score of the spoken sonata. As with any printed music, many interpretations are possible. As with any other reading, correct reading requires the use of imagination.

- Listening to the sonata is better than reading it. This is why I like to perform my sonata in public.”