ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Tristan Tzara and his Dada friends created a similar aesthetics of unexplained juxtaposition between words and music in Dada performance events. Both are present in the typical Dada soiree; but the links between them are never explicit, and there is a principled refusal to comment on, or even to mention, the music, just as Tzara does not comment on or mention the visual art that accompanies his poetry. There are many parallels to be drawn between Vittorio Rieti, composer of the music played in Weimar, and Hans Heusser. Heusser was twenty-four years old when his music was first performed at a Dada event, in 1916; Rieti, being six years younger, was the same age when his music was performed at Dada events in 1922–1923. The music played in the Weimar event upheld another great Dada tradition. It was, like the music of Zurich and Paris Dada, honoured in silence.
