The Music of Dada

A lesson in intermediality for our times

Peter Dayan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351031721
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

100 years after the Dada soirées rocked the art world, the author investigates the role that music played in the movement. Dada is generally thought of as noisy and unmusical, but The Music of Dada shows that music was at the core of Dada theory and practice. Music (by Schoenberg, Satie and many others) performed on the piano played a central role in the soirées, from the beginnings in Zurich, in 1916, to the end in Paris and Holland, seven years later. The Music of Dada provides a historical analysis of music at Dada events, and asks why accounts of Dada have so consistently ignored music's vital presence. The answer to that question turns out to explain how music has related to the other arts ever since the days of Dada. The music of Dada is the key to understanding intermediality in our time.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements and references
• Introduction: Dada, born in music
• 1 Music in Zurich Dada, 1916–1918
• 2 New York pre-Dada and its Parisian roots: music excluded from modern art
• 3 The last Zurich Dada soirée: music drowned out
• 4 Music and anti-music in Paris Dada, 1920–1923
• 5 The music of Dada follows Kurt Schwitters to Holland (bypassing Berlin) and ends in the Ursonate
• 6 Epilogue: the scope of music in Dadascope (1961)
• Conclusions: understanding music since Dada
• Bibliography
• Index