dada and dadaists
audio cds from ltm

Our CD anthologies Futurism & Dada Reviewed and Voices of Dada feature historic archive spoken word recordings by key Dada artists as well as a small number of more recent recordings, and are widely acknowledged as definitive. The Festival Dada Paris CD features unique recordings of music perfomed at key Dada events in Paris between 1920 and 1923. All CDs are mastered and packaged to a high standard, with booklets containing archive images and detailed historical notes. To purchase CDs click here.


FUTURISM & DADA REVIEWED 1912-1959 (LTMCD 2301) £10
This acclaimed 70 minute anthology is the definitive collection of original sound recordings by key artists from the Futurist and Dada art movements. The booklet features detailed historical notes (in English) on the artists featured, as well as full recording information. To read full sleevenotes click here. Dates in brackets in the following tracklist indicate the year in which the artist made the original recording. Full tracklist: Luigi Russolo Risveglio di una Cita, Antonio Russolo Corale (1921), F.T. Marinetti Sintesi Musicali Futuriste (1931), Antonio Russolo Serenata (1921), F.T. Marinetti La Battaglia di Adrianopoli (1924), F.T. Marinetti Definizione di Futurismo (1924), Luigi Grandi Cavalli + Acciaio (1935), Wyndham Lewis End of Enemy Interlude (1940), Guillaume Apollinaire Le Pont Mirabeau (1912), Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Richard Huelsenbeck L'amiral cherche une maison a louer, Marcel Duchamp La mariee mise a nu par ses celibataires meme (musical erratum), Richard Huelsenbeck Inventing Dada (1959 interview), Tristan Tzara Dada into Surrealism (1959 interview), Kurt Schwitters Die Sonata un Urlauten (1932), Jean Cocteau La Toison d'Or and Le Voleurs d'Enfants (both 1929). ISBN 0-9540549-3-8

Reviews: "Handy manual of a world turned upside down. All the big names of the Big Two are here. Compilations like this are often of purely collectible interest, but this is an exception - and exceptional to boot. From Wyndham Lewis' poshtones to some skippy jazz-hot from Jean Cocteau, this is unremittingly joyous" (The Wire, 2001) "Of huge interest to anyone interested in art and music history, and offers a glimpse at groundbreaking compositions that opened up the possibilities still being explored by contemporary composers and performers" (Brainwashed, 08/04); "Fantastic" (The Wire, 09/04); "This compilation is a time capsule from early 20th century Europe, when the continent swarmed with -isms. Although they differed on the precise details, these manifesto-brandishing movements typically called for an utter overhaul of established ideas of art, arguing that Western Civilisation, enervated and sagging into decadence, needed an invigorating injection of barbarian iconoclasm to renew itself. The material from the Italian Futurists on this anthology includes a version of Risveglio di una Citta, a symphony of scrapes and whirs woven by Luigi Russolo, the movement's chief musical theoretician and coiner of the enduring buzz-concept "the art of noises." His brother Antonio's Chorale sounds like a conventional classical overture, except there's this roar of turbulence that intermittently rears up, as though's there's a gale raging outside the concert hall. Wyndham Lewis, British Futurist sympathizer and leader of his very own -ism, Vorticism, recites a poem that once probably seemed audaciously "free" with its run-on stanzas, but now positively creaks with starchy quaintness. The Dadaist material, however, retains a good portion of its originally scandalous shock of the new. On the noise-poem L'Amiral Cherche Une Maison A Louer, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and Richard Huelsenbeck unleash a polyphonic babble of multilingual nonsense, punctuated with circus-clown irruptions of rude noise, enough to get your blood boiling with excitement almost a century later. Huelsenbeck also contributes a great reminiscence of the genesis of Dada, incongruously backed with a Indian raga drone. Kurt Schwitters' life-long work-in-process Die Sonate in Urlauten, captured for posterity in 1938, is a tour de force of phonetic poetry, peppering your ears with flurries of phonemes and scattering consonants like confetti around your head" (eMusic (Simon Reynolds), 2006); "All the time, there are things going on in artists' heads that are the same from generation to generation. I love this" (The Wire, 01/07); "Recommended" (Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2006); "Tzara is interviewed, Wyndham Lewis reads at reckless speed, then there's machinistic music from Russolo and Grandi, and Apollinaire shouting into a shoe. Enthralling! More of this right now" (Melody Maker, 12/88); "Sheds new light on two of the most important artistic movements of the 20th Century, whose influence today remains incalculable" (Le Drapeau Rouge, 02/89); "No mere anthology, this is a true testament" (Les Inrocktibles, 2-3/89)



VOICES OF DADA (LTMCD 2424) £10
A fuller companion piece to Futurism & Dada Reviewed, Voices of Dada features rare interviews and poetry readings by six key Dada anti-artists recorded between 1932 and 1967. The CD has a total running time of 74 minutes. All material has been carefully digitally remastered, and the booklet features images and detailed historical notes by James Hayward. To read sleevenotes click here. Dates in brackets in the following tracklist indicate the year in which the artist made the original recording. Full tracklist: Marcel Duchamp A l'infinitif (1967), Hans Arp Dada-spruche (1961), Marcel Duchamp Interview #1 (1959), Richard Huelsenbeck Phantastiche Gebete (1967), Richard Huelsenbeck Interview - complete (1959), Tristan Tzara Pour compte (1948), Kurt Schwitters Die Sonata in Urlauten (1932), Marcel Duchamp Interview #2 (1959), Kurt Schwitters An Anna Blume (1932), Raoul Hausmann bbb + fmsbw, kp'erioum (all 1956). ISBN 0-9540549-9-7

Reviews: "A fascinating compilation of Dada text performances and interviews with dada luminaries like Schwitters, Arp, Tzara and Duchamp, who discusses his Nude Descending a Staircase, and the infighting among the various factions. Elsewhere Richard Huelsenbeck outlines the political origins of the movement in the First World War. These interviews give you dada from the horse's mouth - apt, given that one of the original meanings of the word was 'hobby horse'" (The Wire, 8/08)


FESTIVAL DADA PARIS 1920-23 (LTMCD 2513) £10
A unique CD based on the piano repertoire performed at two landmark Dada events in Paris, namely the Festival Dada on 26 May 1920, and the infamous Soirée du Coeur à Barbe on 6 July 1923, an event disrupted by violent confrontation between Tristan Tzara's Dada faction and Surrealists lead by Andre Breton. Music from the 1920 event includes two pieces by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes as well as The American Nurse by Francis Picabia, the latter described as 'three notes repeated to infinity'. Pieces performed at the riotous 1923 soirée include two fox-trots by Georges Auric and Darius Milhaud (both members of the celebrated group Les Six), Trois Morceaux en forme de poire by Erik Satie, and Three Easy Pieces by Igor Stravinsky. The CD also includes other pieces such as Satie's bizarre playlet Le Piège de Méduse (premiered in Paris in May 1921), Drie composities voor Klavier by the Belgian-born Dada/Surrealist E.L.T. Mesens, and a piano rendering of Marcel Duchamp's short vocal Musical Erratum of 1913. The CD closes with an historic archive Stravinsky recording from 1925 by Marcelle Meyer, the pianist who performed at the 1923 event. The music of dada is rarely heard, and remarkably this CD marks the first ever recordings of these compositions by Ribemont-Dessaignes, Picabia and Mesens. All were researched and performed for the project by virtuoso Dutch pianist Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen. The booklet includes detailed liner notes by James Hayward, as well as archive images. To read full sleevenote click here. Full tracklist: Erik Satie Trois morceaux en forme de poire; Darius Milhaud Caramel Mou (shimmy); Georges Auric Adieu, New York (Fox-trot); Igor Stravinsky Trois pièces faciles à quatre mains; Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes Le Nombril interlope; Francis Picabia La nourrice américaine (fast); Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes Pas de la chicorée frisée; Erik Satie Le Piège de Méduse; E.L.T. Mesens Drie composities voor Klavier; Marcel Duchamp Musical Erratum; Francis Picabia La nourrice américaine (slow); Igor Stravinsky Rag-Time (1925 recording by Marcelle Meyer); Le Pelican (fox-trot) (wax cylinder recording).

Reviews: "This soundtrack to four Parisian Dada events recreated on this CD is revealing. The 1923 event included cute foxtrots by Satie acolytes Milhaud and Auric, an exercise in suave primitivism by Stravinsky, and Satie's own Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire, a sardonic response to Debussy's accusation that his compositions were formless. Satie, whose music alternated between quirky charm and translucent beauty, has been hugely important to later, more overt experimentalists, not least because of his constitutional perversity and creative independence. For these reasons he was Dada's favoured composer, although audibly his own man. Les familiar, and in that sense more interesting, music is included here, for example three pithy pieces by ELT Mesens. Picabia outstrips even the confrontational minimalism of Satie's sublimely tedious Vexations, while Duchamp's Musical Erratum enshrines randomness decades in advance of John Cage's use of chance procedures. Still more arresting are the mechanical thrust and punchy articulation of two chance-based pieces by Ribemont-Dessaignes, a distorted echo perhaps of fashionable player piano music. Dada music may not have captured the 'roaring of tense colours' that Tzara was after in his soirees, but with Satie's unassuming guidance it has reverberated into an experimental future" (The Wire, 04/2008); "Pianist Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen's account of Satie is flat and cerebral, a winning strategy that allows Satie's oddness to register on its own terms. His take on Stravinsky adds coolly controlled grit, while he relishes the structural labyrinth of the Auric. Picabia's slowly unfolding piece hovers like an anticipation of Morton Feldman, and Duchamp is curiously refreshing. The disc concludes with two archival gems, and this latest instalment from the LTM label is a stimulating postcard of bygone controversies" (International Piano, 5-6/2008)


ERIK SATIE : DADA WORKS & ENTR'ACTES (LTMCD 2474) £10
An enthusiastic Dada activist in Paris between 1920 and 1924, Satie collaborated extensively with Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, wrote often in Francis Picabia's journal 391, and was a sworn enemy of the proto-Surrealist faction lead by Andre Breton. According to Man Ray, Satie was "the only composer who had eyes." All of Satie's principle Dada-related works are included on this unique 70 minute CD, including: Trois morceaux en forme de poire, performed by Satie in July 1923 at Tzara's notorious Soirée du Coeur a barbe, at which fighting broke out between Tzara's supporters and the proto-Surrealist faction; Ragtime Dada, an extract from the ballet Parade performed at a series of Dada soirees by Kurt Schwitters in 1922; Entr'acte and Cinéma, both scores for Picabia's multi-media 'instantaneist' ballet Relâche performed in 1924. Cinéma was Satie's custom score for the celebrated intermission film by René Clair, while for their curtain call Satie and Picabia drove onstage in a tiny car, resplendent in jewels and furs, the whole production amounting to a dazzling act of anti-art provocation. Both are Satie's arrangements for solo piano. All pieces are performed on piano by Bojan Gorisek, and the booklet includes archive images and detailed historical notes by James Hayward. To read sleevenotes click here. Full tracklist: Trois morceaux en forme de poire, Ragtime Dada, Entr'acte (Pt 1), Cinéma, Entr'acte (Pt 2).


MUSICAL ERRATUM + IN CONVERSATION (LTMCD 2504) £10
Written in 1913, the Musical Erratum for piano forms part of the sequence of notes and projects which led to Duchamp's celebrated artwork, La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (The bride stripped bare by her batchelors, even, often called The Large Glass). La Mariée… is also the sub-title of the 1913 piano work. Abstract, elusive and even "inachievable" according to the artist, the Musical Erratum consists of two scores. In the first, notes are replaced by numbered keys, and virtuoso performance is discouraged in favour of novel mechanical instrumentation. The second offers a form of random composition, by which numbered balls are dropped into the moving wagons of a toy train. Famously, Duchamp described the whole as "a very useless performance, in any event." Two versions are included on this CD, including a conventional (but non-virtuoso) performance on piano, and another on which spinning rotary discs brush the piano strings to produce extraordinary tones. The extended 74 minute CD also includes four spoken word extracts by Duchamp (in the English language), including a fascinating lecture delivered in Houston in 1957, The Creative Act, and a lengthy interview recorded in 1959. For further details click here. Full tracklist: Musical Erratum (La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même)(prepared piano); The Creative Act; A L'Infinitif; Interview *1; Interview *2; Musical Erratum (La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même)(piano)


LA NOURRICE AMERICAINE (THE AMERICAN NURSE) (LTMCD 2509) £10
Written in 1920, La Nourrice Américaine (The American Nurse) consists of "three notes repeated to infinity" and was performed for the first - and last - time at the Festival Dada, staged at the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 26 May 1920. A landmark event, it launched the Dada phenomenon in Paris. La Nourrice Américaine was performed by Marguerite Buffet, duration unknown. It seems likely that Picabia's only venture into musical composition was inspired by talks with his friends Erik Satie, Marcel Duchamp and Edgard Varese. On this CD fast and slow interpretations are included, both performed by pianist Tom Feldschuh and each lasting for 20 minutes. The CD also includes three spoken word interviews by Picabia (in French), recorded between 1945 and 1949, as well as detailed sleevenotes and translations of the interviews. For further details click here. Full tracklist: La Nourrice Américaine (fast version), interview material, La Nourrice Américaine (slow version).


NELLY (PETRO) VAN DOESBURG "REPERTOIRE DE STIJL : BAUHAUS : DADA" LTMCD 2496 £10
Born in Holland in 1899, Nelly first met Theo van Doesburg in 1920. Over the next decade the couple lived in Holland, Weimar (where Theo was associated with the influential Bauhaus school) and Paris. A Conservatory-trained pianist, Nelly accompanied her husband's lectures with selected modernist piano pieces, and also performed at Salon Dada soirees organised by Theo with Kurt Schwitters in Holland and Germany in 1922/23. Her repertoire included pieces by Satie, Hauer, Schoenberg, Poulenc, Honegger and Jacob van Domselaer, whose austere Proeven van Stijlkunst (1913-17) is a musical application of Piet Mondrian's neo-plastic principles. The 76 minute CD is performed by pianist Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen; the deluxe booklet features archive images and detailed historical notes. To read liner notes click here. Full tracklist: Gian Francesco Malipiero Barlumi (1917); Jacob van Domselaer Proeven van Stijlkunst (1913-16); Francis Poulenc Trois mouvements perpétuels (1918); Josef Matthias Hauer Tanz Op. 10 (1915); Vittorio Rieti Tre Marcie per le Bestie (1920); Arnold Schoenberg Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19 (1911); Arthur Honegger Trois pièces pour piano (1915-19); Erik Satie Ragtime Parade (1919); Daniel Ruyneman Hallucinate (1915); Egon Wellesz Eklogen Op. 11 (1912); Nino Formoso Ti-Ta-To

Reviews: "The relationship between the original Dadaist movements — plural, as the style found distribution among a number of international cities — and music is an aspect of early modernism that remains underinvestigated. Although Erik Satie's connection to Dada isn't in dispute, outside of concretism Marcel Duchamp's two aleatoric compositions and the work of Edgard Varèse of the New York group (which he destroyed), it might seem that Dada was simply not invested in music in the same way that the Russian and Italian Futurist movements were. Dada had a tendency to borrow artistic statements from various disciplines, setting up ordinary household items as art objects or transforming trash found in the street into paintings. LTM's CD Nelly (Pétro) van Doesburg Piano: Repertoire de Stijl: Bauhaus, Dada, demonstrates how the Dadaist movements "borrowed" works of musicians with whom they shared mutual sympathies. Nelly van Doesburg was the wife of Theo van Doesburg, founder of De Stijl in Holland, a concrete poet under the pseudonym of "I.K. Bonset" and a major mover in Dutch Dada and certain of the German Dadaist congresses. This recording is not made up of Nelly van Doesburg's playing, which is apparently lost to us, but of her repertoire, rendered here by pianist Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen. Information about her concert choices was extracted from the concert programs that van Doesberg played at Dadaist events in the 1920s when she was recognized by the press as the "indisputable voice of the Dada movement in Europe." Beijersbergen van Henegouwen accessed a number of the scores in this recording through van Doesburg's own copies of music that she played, including the silly polka Ti-Ta-To by Italian Nino Formoso that van Doesberg may have adopted only as it had a futurist design on the front cover. Some of the music is familiar — Schoenberg's aphoristic Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19, Poulenc's Trois mouvements Perpetuels, and a solo piano version of the "Ragtime" from Satie's arch-Dadaistic ballet Parade. Other composers we know, but they are represented in unfamiliar works; Malipiero's suite Barlumi (1917), Honegger's Trois Pièces pour piano (1915-1919), or Vittorio Rieti's Tre Marcie per le Bestie (1920), mysterious, experimental, and dissonant pieces rather unlike the neo-Classical Rieti that we mostly know. Unfamiliar composers take up a third of the program — who has heard of Jakob van Domselaer's Proeven van Stijlkunst or Daniel Ruyneman's Hallucinatie? That is one of the values of such a compilation; the program makes available for the first time a number of pieces only known from their listings in Dadaist handbills. Does all of the music evoke the essence of Dada? Not necessarily, but it does connect strongly with their scavenging spirit, the willingness to take something out of context, and put it up before us and say, "Now why don't you see this as we see it?" Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen performs the pieces in a straightforward, no-nonsense manner, and LTM's recording is clean and direct" (All Music Guide, 08/2007)

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