Kurt Schwitters

The importance of Kurt Schwitters extends to more branches of Western art than most twentieth-century artists. He was an artist, graphic designer, typographer, set designer, and poet who, among many other accomplishments, wrote the Ursonate, a spoken text piece based on a sound poem by Raoul Hausmann. If this work had been a forgettable stunt of a composition, he would have no place in music history. However, as a successful work that has its place in Schwitters' branch of Dadaism (Merz, meaning "trash"), the Ursonate gave the eccentric German an importance to music lovers tha...