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This seven inch contains 4 Sprechtanzen; Foxtrott, Langsamer Walzer, Wiener Walzer & Tango. It was recorded when being performed by Gerhard Rühm and his partner Monika Lichtenfeld Rühm in DE PLAYER at 23 January 2016 for our BRAUBLFF #5 program.

Gerhard Rühm, who was born in Vienna in 1930, studied piano and composition at the Vienna Academy of Music. In the mid-1950's he was co-founder of the "Wiener Gruppe" (Achleitner, Artmann, Bayer, Rühm, Wiener), which was devoted a major retrospective in 1997 in the framework of the "Biennale di Venezia". Rühm first became known through his book publications of experimental poetry. From the very start, however, his focus was always on multi-media work and he developed poetry further above all in borderline areas - both of visual art (visual poetics, gestural and conceptual drawings, photomontages, book objects) but also of music (auditive poetry as spoken and taped texts, chansons, melodramas, vocal ensembles, sound poetry).

These pieces are beautiful, joyful, simple and effective. In the 1950's Gerhard Rühm his keen observation and, above all, his revolutionary way of rendering experiences provoked society, which initially ostracized him but eventually learned to appreciate the pioneering direction of his work and awarded him recognition that makes him one of the most important contemporary men of letters.