Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) was a German artist, poet, and avant-garde pioneer associated with the Dada movement. He developed his own branch of Dada, which he called Merz, based on the use of found objects and the beauty of chance and everyday life. He also gave the same name to the art magazine he founded and edited during the 1920s and 1930s. His work encompassed collage, objects, architecture, poetry, and performance. He was active in Hanover, where he created the legendary Merzbau by continually transforming the rooms of his family home at Waldhausenstrasse 5 – a project that grew over several years like a living organism. Before the Second World War, he emigrated to Norway, and later to England.

Vojtěch Šembera (1995) is an experimental vocalist, composer, and opera singer. He focuses on the interpretation and composition of contemporary vocal music, free improvisation, and song repertoire ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. He has performed at festivals such as New Opera Days Ostrava, Exposition of New Music, Dag in de Branding, Sanatorium Sonorum, and the Venice Biennale, where he co-performed pieces by Fero Király as part of Oto Hudec’s Floating Arboretum project. He is one of the few performers in the (Central) European context capable of studying and performing (by heart) the legendary Ursonate by the German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters.

Ursonate, literally translated as “original sonata” or “primordial sonata” – was created between 1922 and 1932 as an early work of sound poetry. It inhabits the boundary between music and poetry and is regarded not only as Schwitters’s magnum opus but also as one of the most significant vocal works of the 20th century. The piece, composed of non-existent words and phonetic expressions organized into rhythmically and melodically intricate structures, consists of four parts, an introduction, a conclusion, and a cadence in the fourth part. Its form is constructed with almost architectural precision, working with literal repetition of themes and numerous variations. In his foreword to Ursonate, published alongside the poem in his magazine Merz, Schwitters describes the form in a highly matter-of-fact manner. Yet, this rational approach to organizing the textual material ultimately offers great interpretive freedom, as the performer can delve deeply into the sonic detail of each individual word, each “primordial sound.” The piece lasts three quarters of an hour and presents a challenge for the performer and an unrepeatable experience for the audience. Schwitters himself emphasized that a considerable degree of imagination is required to fully grasp the Ursonate. The text itself holds such an abundance of possible interpretations that imagination seems to breathe upon the listener, making it difficult to resist its pull.