Can You Say Dada? Artists' response to epic wars still rings true in music and art

Musically speaking, it’s fair to say that Lutz Rath is never afraid to go out on a limb.

A classically trained cellist and world renown performer on the chamber music circuit, when it comes to designing his own musical programs for audiences, Rath often likes to push the envelope by challenging his listeners to go where they’ve never been before. 

Take his upcoming November 15 concert at the Bay Street Theatre for example. Entitled “Degenerate Music + Words” the program includes an evening of music by composers whose work was banned during the Nazi period as well as a rare performance — by Rath himself — of “Ursonate,” a spoken absurd vocal tone poem by German Dada collage artist Kurt Schwitters.

Anyone who knows a bit about Dadaism understands that, to the uninitiated it can be, well, a bit irreverent and seemingly nonsensical. But Dadaism was also a powerful cultural movement that began in Switzerland in 1916 as an artistic community’s response to the first world war. While the official movement lasted only until 1925, Rath points out that Dadaism has transformed into other key cultural forms of expression including surrealism, nouveau realism, pop art and punk, among others.

‘It was a reaction toward all the cruelty of World War I,” explains Rath. “There was incredible destruction and world suffering and Dada was a movement against traditional art in general.”

“It was against the old values left over from the 19th century,” continues Rath. “The humanitarian values, the aesthetic values, the cause of world conflict was all of that — Dada was rebelling against it. You have to remember, Germany still had the Kaiser and so did Austria before World War I.”

Schwitters wrote “Ursonate” between 1922 and 1932. Based on the vowels and consonants of the German alphabet, the poem contains not a single complete word and was Schwitters’ take on what he saw as the absurd and incomprehensible beginnings of Nazi speeches. 

“It has a hidden nature, which is a degeneration,” explains Rath illustrating how the poem fits in with the theme of his program. “It’s highly provocative and the aim of it is to make you reevaluate what’s around you. This piece is probably the first example of performance art. There are other Dada pieces which have words and melodies but this is the only one in the entire Dada movement that’s mostly spoken. It’s a tone poem of 45 minutes without a single word.”

Rath has performed “Ursonate” often in recent months, most notably in the glass walled gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel at 47th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. As he paced through the gallery uttering the poem’s sounds, Rath’s voice was projected out onto the street where pedestrians gathered to watch him through the window. An explanation about the piece was posted to help the audience understand what it was all about.In this case, explanation, says Rath, is key to appreciation and in his introduction to the piece at Bay Street, he will do exactly that. 

While the delivery of the sounds in “Ursonate” may seem entirely random to some listeners, Rath explains that there are rules. As a performer, he is free to interpret much of the text as he chooses, but Schwitters also left behind strict guidelines pertaining to certain aspects of the poem’s presentation — including the pronunciation of vowels and the speed at which the sounds should be delivered. After repeated performances, Rath is finding freedom in the piece.

“It takes on an emotional meaning for me,” he adds. “It’s a question of the energy you put into a line or sequence. It can be an expression of fury, an expression of inhibition or despair. You can go through the entire scale of what comes to mind at the moment.”

“I love spoken things,” adds Rath. “For me voice, singing or speaking offers the greatest immediacy between yourself and the audience. There’s no instrument, no mechanism between the directness of who you are what you feel and what you want to portray.” 

Other than a 1931 radio recording of Schwitters performing the poem himself, there are no other recordings or films that reveal how he thought it should be done. Rath recalls that when he performed “Ursonate” in Hawaii last winter, a 94 year old woman told him that said she had witnessed Schwitters performing the poem in Berlin. Not easy given that Schwitters art — and in fact the entire Dada movement — was declared “degenerate” by the Nazi regime.

As native of Germany, the idea of art that has historically been considered hidden or dangerous by the ruling class has long fascinated Rath. A few years ago, he brought a program entitled “Forbidden Music” to the Old Whalers’ Church in Sag Harbor. The concert featured music by Jewish composers who were prisoners in the Theresienstadt concentration camp near Prague.

This program, “Degenerate Music + Words,” is named for Hitler’s ironic 1937 art show “Degenerate Art” in Munich in which the Nazis publicly displayed works of art that they found unacceptable – including a collage by Schwitters. Performing this program with Rath will be violinist Eriko Sato and pianist David Oei, and in addition to “Ursonate” the selections will also feature music by the German Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff, French composer Olivier Messiaen, Hungarians Gyorgy Kurtag and Gyorgy Ligeti, and Austrian Franz Schubert who Rath notes was a “total outsider” during his lifetime.

Also on this program will be more music from Theresienstadt including Viktor Ullmann’s final composition which he wrote at the camp. The piece is entitled “The Way of Love and Death of the Cornet Christoph Rilke,” 12 poems by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke for piano and speaker.

“It’s a very powerful document of spoken word, poetry and piano,” says Rath. “The piano part is so emotional and the scope of it is so overwhelming.”

“It’s a series of poems about war written in 1663,” explains Rath. “Ullmann got hold of these poems in the concentration camp and used them to depict the situation they were in at the concentration camp and knowing what was going on around him — the fates. Very shortly afterwards he got transported to Auschwitz and gassed.” 

“I did the piece a few months ago at a synagogue in Long Island. A woman came up and said she was with Ullmann when he was writing this piece.”

“Degenerate Music + Words” is Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 8 p.m. at Bay Street Theatre, Long Wharf, Sag Harbor. Tickets are $25 ($15 students) in advance at Kramoris Gallery, 41 Main Street, Sag Harbor (725- 2499). Tickets can also be purchased at the theatre box office one hour before the performance.

Above: Cellist Lutz Rath, violinist Eriko Sato and pianist David Oei