DOCSLIB.ORG

NOVI ZVUK 34.Indb

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
NOVI ZVUK 34.Indb Article received on 3rd September 2009 Article accepted on October 2nd 2009 UDK 7.037.3:78] Varèse Е. Dragana Stojanović-Novičić1 University of Arts in Belgrade Faculty of Music – Department of Musicology WORK OF EDGARD VARÈSE AND ‘FUTURIST MUSIC’: AFFINITIES (AND DIFFERENCES)2 Abstract: The author discusses a relation between Edgard Varèse and Futurism in music. Varèse rejected to be treated as a part of the Futurist movement. He was rather sure that Futurist musicians just wanted to imitate nature; but we have to have in mind that his approach to musical Futurism was much more based on what he read in press than on his live contact(s) with projects of Futurist composers. Anyway, he was a close friend of Luigi Russolo who, although an amateur in music, should be regarded as the most prominent Futurist musician. Varèse gave a talk at the presentation of some of Russolo’s instruments at a concert in Paris in 1929. Key words: Edgard Varèse, Futurism, Luigi Russolo, intonarumori, rumorarmonio, Arte dei rumori, Ferruccio Busoni, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Henry Cowell, Umberto Boccioni, machine. In order to understand the kinship between the Futurist movement, especially Futurist music production, and the opus of Edgard Varèse (1883–1965), as well as discrepancies in their artistic preoccupations, we need to outline some of the manifest postulates of Futurism. What was the meaning of being a Futurist com- 1 Author contact information: [email protected] 2 The research for this article was carried out as a part of the project World Chronotopes of Ser- bian Music, No. 147045D (2006-2010), supported by the Serbian Ministry of Science and Tech- nological Development. 50 Stojanović-Novičić, D.: Work Of Edgard Varèse And ‘Futurist Music’... (50-61) poser, i.e. an exponent of Futurist music? Besides the implied adherence to the movement, which is to say display and realization of an intention to participate in group activities,3 it meant primarily to write music which will incarnate the appointed (musical) principles (atonal music, microtonal music, aggressively charged music with sharp rhythmic curves, ‘machine’ music, fast tempo music etc.)4 and/or to compose works using the new musical instruments which were, under the general term intonarumori, invented by the proponents of Futurist aes- 3 The book Arte dei rumori by Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) contains a detailed list of the move- ment members, sorted in several artistic (poetry, painting, architecture, music, art of noises, intonarumori, synthetic theatre) and organizational groups (politics, propaganda, etc.). Inter- estingly enough, the only representative of music was Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880–1953), while Russolo was put in charge of the art of noises and, together with Ugo Piatti (1885–1953), of the instruments from the intonarumori group. The gesture almost suggests that the traditional music is clearly divided from the art of noises and the set of new instruments, as well as the exponents of the new art, the art of future. (Cf. Luigi Russolo, L’arte dei rumori, Milano, Edizione Futuriste di ‘Poesia’, 1916). Russolo presented Varèse with his book on 29th May 1929; the copy is kept in Edgard Varèse Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation, marked EV B 1006. The gift is ac- companied by an inscription: ‘To my dear and great friend Edgard Varèse, my soul still fi lled with the passionate enthusiasm aroused in me by his magnifi cent Amériques.’ The text of the inscription, written in Italian in the book itself, is quoted after the translation in: Olivia Mattis, ‘Futurism’, in: Olivia Mattis, Edgard Varèse and the Visual Arts, Ann Arbor, MI, UMI Dissertation Services, 1992, 62. 4 This music could be diverse in terms of genre classifi cation. For example, Pratella’s composi- tion La Guerra op. 32 (1912) was written for piano solo, but regarding the treatment of the music material, it strives towards the Futurist ideal. The opera L’aviatore Dro (op. 33, 1912–1914) by the same author, however, includes a range of Futurist instruments (rombatori [roarers], sibilatore [low whistler], scoppiatori [bursters], ululatori [howlers]); the music material of the opera, at least in those short segments available today (provided, of course, the segments are correctly inter- preted), also refl ects the Futurist endeavours. Also, if we disregard that manifest adherence of certain authors to the Futurist movement, we would have little reason not to include Bartók’s Allegro barbaro (1911) – written one year after Pratella created Manifesto dei musicisti futuristi his fi rst manifesto of musical Futurism – among Futurist works. Regarding that, we should note the exceptional affi nity of the composition Danza meccanica (1933) by Francesco Balilla Pratella and the foregoing Bartók’s work. Daniele Lombardi, one of the most prominent researchers of Futurist music is inclined to connect a very great deal of compositions with the Futurist ideas. For example, he puts Igor Stravinsky in a similar context: ‘Igor Stravinsky, whom the poet Francesco Cangiullo described as the most Futurist musician of all, in whom the Futurist theories seem to have been realized in brilliant fashion. And in this sense, Piano rag Music has lost none of its energy.’ (Daniele Lombardi, the booklet of futurisMUSIC, Piano Anthology 1 – Daniele Lombardi, col legno, 2000, WWE 1CD, 20076, LC 07989). It turns out that the works of Edgard Varèse belong to that wide circle of Futurism-coloured works as well. Sergei Diaghilev was very impressed by the intonarumori instruments. It is known that he spoke with Maurice Ravel and Stravinsky about whether they could include this set of instruments in their works. Although both of them showed considerable enthusiasm, the idea of using the new instruments in their opuses was not realized. Stravinsky could hear Russolo’s instruments at the Futurist concert in London in 1914. Ravel heard these instruments in 1921, at a concert in Paris. 51 New Sound 34, II/2009 thetics,5 be the foregoing structural characteristics prominent in those works or, on the contrary, completely absent. However, we must keep in mind that the so- called Futurist composers also wrote pieces that had no common ground with the aesthetics they belonged to.6 It is typical that Luigi Russolo,7 one of the most distinguished members of Futurism, wrote all his works for the intonarumori instruments;8 adaptations of Russolo’s works for conventional ensembles combined with the intonarumori in- struments were made by his brother Antonio Russolo.9 Although he did not dis- 5 This family of instruments was constructed, built and, to an extent, patented by Luigi Rus- solo and his assistant Ugo Piatti. 6 Among those works, we should mention the major part of the opus of Francesco Balilla Pratella, the composer whose works directly inspired Russolo to write his manifesto of Futur- ist music. One of Pratella’s best-known compositions, which practically shows no intention to considerably evoke the postulates of Futurist music (apart from an occasional atonal oasis in the musical tissue), is the string quartet Giallo pallido op. 39 (1920 or 1923). This music is in some elements reminiscent of applied music, which is not at all unusual in Pratella’s case; during his career, he dealt with fi lm music, among other things. 7 At the beginning of his career, Russolo was known as a painter. After the period of compos- ing for intonarumori instruments, Russolo went on to writing philosophical books, and later on he turned back to painting. 8 Combattimento nell’oasi (Skirmish at the Oasis, 1913), Risveglio di una cittŕ (The Awakening of a City, 1913/14), Convegno di automobile e aeroplani (Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes, 1913/14) and others. 9 Antonio Russolo, to a certain degree, also belonged to the movement and wrote several compositions which are considered a refl ection of Futurist ideals. In his opus we can note a ‘bifurcation’, and the separate streams, under scrutiny, show no convincing unrelatedness: in Gavotta for piano, violin and violoncello (1914), a work of a (Middle European) Romantic concept, written during the ‘fi ery’ phase of the Futurist movement, nothing suggests that the author is interested in Futurist principles. Quite another matter is his Serenata for orchestra and intonarumori instruments (1921); this work leaves the impression that the author is basi- cally a Neo-classicist with a tinge of world-music, but wants to reach some pretty uncertain degree of ‘modernity’, hence fi nds the solution in incorporating the Futurist instruments. With their cumbersome and gigantic bursts in this work, it is as if they come from another musical environment, disturbing almost provincial serenity of the instrumental tissue. The original recording (i.e. the one dating back from the time of the work’s conception – 1921) is preserved; it is available on the CD edition Luigi Russolo – Francesco B. Pratella, Pionieri del Nuovo Suono in Musica, Musica Futurista & Futuro, © Fondazione Russolo Pratella, ef. er. P’97. An analogous situation we fi nd in Varèse’s case: there were opinions (which could surely be vehemently dis- puted) that the coexistence of acoustical and electronic part in Varèse’s work Déserts was done in an utterly unsatisfactory manner, that what was merged was unrelated and incompatible. Considering that some electronic implementations of the work’s recorded component were produced in Pierre Schaeffer’s studio for musique concrète, this composer emphasized that the complete fi asco of the premiere performance of Varèse’s work endangered
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe Published on Iitaly.Org (
    Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe Published on iItaly.org (http://www.iitaly.org) Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe Natasha Lardera (February 21, 2014) On view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, until September 1st, 2014, this thorough exploration of the Futurist movement, a major modernist expression that in many ways remains little known among American audiences, promises to show audiences a little known branch of Italian art. Giovanni Acquaviva, Guillaume Apollinaire, Fedele Azari, Francesco Balilla Pratella, Giacomo Balla, Barbara (Olga Biglieri), Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti), Mario Bellusi, Ottavio Berard, Romeo Bevilacqua, Piero Boccardi, Umberto Boccioni, Enrico Bona, Aroldo Bonzagni, Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Arturo Bragaglia, Alessandro Bruschetti, Paolo Buzzi, Mauro Camuzzi, Francesco Cangiullo, Pasqualino Cangiullo, Mario Carli, Carlo Carra, Mario Castagneri, Giannina Censi, Cesare Cerati, Mario Chiattone, Gilbert Clavel, Bruno Corra (Bruno Ginanni Corradini), Tullio Crali, Tullio d’Albisola (Tullio Mazzotti), Ferruccio Demanins, Fortunato Depero, Nicolaj Diulgheroff, Gerardo Dottori, Fillia (Luigi Page 1 of 3 Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe Published on iItaly.org (http://www.iitaly.org) Colombo), Luciano Folgore (Omero Vecchi), Corrado Govoni, Virgilio Marchi, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Alberto Martini, Pino Masnata, Filippo Masoero, Angiolo Mazzoni, Torido Mazzotti, Alberto Montacchini, Nelson Morpurgo, Bruno Munari, N. Nicciani, Vinicio Paladini
    [Show full text]
  • Sintesi Futurista Della Guerra
    Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Ugo Piatti SINTESI FUTURISTA El Lissitzky DELLA GUERRA SVENJA WEIKINNIS Schlagt die Weißen mit dem Roten Keil Faltblatt, Offsetdruck auf Papier, 29 x 23 cm, 1914 1919 Farblithografie 49,3 x 69,1 cm Russische Staat- »Marinetti, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Piatti. Dal Cellulare di Milano, 20 Settembre Die Komposition des Diagramms erinnert an das Plakat Schlagt die Weißen mit dem liche Bibliothek, 1914«, mit dieser ungewöhnlichen Verortung geben die fünf Autoren des Flugblat- roten Keil von El Lissitzky, dessen avantgardistische und einprägsame Darstellung seit- Moskau tes sich zu erkennen. Bei einer interventionistischen Kundgebung in Mailand war die her mannigfaltig adaptiert wurde. Lissitzky propagierte mit ihm den russischen Bürger- Gruppe aus Künstlern und Literaten des Futurismus verhaftet worden. Als der Krieg krieg von Seiten der Roten Armee. Sein Plakat ist aber erst 1920 veröffentlicht worden, 1914 ausbrach, zögerte die italienische Regierung, sich zu beteiligen, stand sogar im weshalb die Möglichkeit besteht, dass Lissitzky die Formensprache von Sintesi futu- Bündnis mit Deutschland und Österreich. Die sogenannten »Interventisten«, deren Un- rista della guerra weiterentwickelt hat. Durch die analoge Gestaltung präzisiert sich die terstützer aus verschiedenen politischen Lagern kamen, drängten zum Kriegsbeitritt, Bildsprache beim Aufruf der futuristischen Gruppe: Der »Futurismo« dringt als Keil Künstler und Intellektuelle übernahmen eine wichtige Rolle bei dem Versuch, Kriegs- weit in den Kreis des »Passatismo« vor, um ihn aufzuspalten. Die Größenverhältnisse begeisterung in der Öffentlichkeit zu schüren. Im Gefängnis – so heißt es – entwarfen der Worte lassen keinen Zweifel offen, wer die Übermacht in diesem Krieg auf seiner die militanten Futuristen diese Proklamation in diagrammatischer Form.
    [Show full text]
  • Music, Noise, and Abstraction
    BYVASIL y KAND INSKY' s OWN AC co u NT, his proto-abstract canvas ImpressionIII (Konzert) (19n; plate 13) was directly inspired by a performance of Arnold Schoenberg's first atonal works (the Second String Quartet, op. ro, and the Three Piano Pieces, op. n) at a concert in Munich on January 2, r9n, attended by Kandinsky and his Blaue Reiter compatriots (plate 6). The correspondence that Kandinsky launched with Schoenberg in the days following the concert makes it clear that both the painter and the composer saw direct parallels between the abandonment of tonality in music and the liberation from representation in visual art. 1 That both construed these artistic breakthroughs in spiritual terms is equally clear. Responding to the crisis of value prompted by scientific mate­ rialism, Kandinsky and Schoenberg affirmed an inner, spiritual realm that promised "ascent to a higher and better order," as Schoenberg would later put it. 2 Kandinsky looked to music, "the least material of the arts," as a means to "turn away from the soulless content of modern life, toward materials and environments that give a free hand to the nonmaterial strivings and searchings of the thirsty soul." "Schoenberg's music," he insisted, "leads us into a new realm, where musical experiences are no longer acoustic, but purely spiritua/."3 But what constitutes the "abstraction" of music in general and of atonal music in particular? And might this well-worn story obscure alternative conceptions of "abstraction" and other relationships between music and art in European modernism? Contrary to the self-presentations of Schoenberg and Kandinsky, there is nothing fundamental about the analogy between abstraction and atonality ­ which is why Paul Klee, Frantisek Kupka, Marsden Hartley, and many other early abstract painters could find inspiration in the eighteenth-century polyphony that consolidated the tonal system in the first place.
    [Show full text]
  • Futurism-Anthology.Pdf
    FUTURISM FUTURISM AN ANTHOLOGY Edited by Lawrence Rainey Christine Poggi Laura Wittman Yale University Press New Haven & London Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication Fund established by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College. Frontispiece on page ii is a detail of fig. 35. Copyright © 2009 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz and set in Scala type by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Futurism : an anthology / edited by Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-08875-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Futurism (Art) 2. Futurism (Literary movement) 3. Arts, Modern—20th century. I. Rainey, Lawrence S. II. Poggi, Christine, 1953– III. Wittman, Laura. NX456.5.F8F87 2009 700'.4114—dc22 2009007811 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: F. T. Marinetti and the Development of Futurism Lawrence Rainey 1 Part One Manifestos and Theoretical Writings Introduction to Part One Lawrence Rainey 43 The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909) F.
    [Show full text]
  • On Audio Culture
    W&M ScholarWorks Articles 9-2006 Review: On Audio Culture Christopher DeLaurenti College of William and Mary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/articles Part of the Audio Arts and Acoustics Commons, and the Music Commons Recommended Citation DeLaurenti, C.A. (2006). “On Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music.” eContact!. 8(4) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. On Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music By Christopher DeLaurenti Published in eContact, the electronic journal of electroacoustics, vol. 8, issue 4. September 2006 “Beethoven and Wagner have stirred our hearts and nerves for many years,” wrote Luigi Russolo in his 1913 manifesto, The Art of Noises. “Now we have had enough of them…” Indeed, music in the 20th century effloresced and then exploded with new ideas and techniques as well as into countless subgenres through new social, technological, and political relations. Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (Continuum) attempts to corral the major and minor trends in adventurous music—and generally succeeds. This cannily collected anthology of seminal music writing includes the obligatory pioneers and almost-pop icons: Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto and John Cage’s The Future of Music: Credo, along with probing pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, media theorist Marshall McLuhan, musique concrète inventor Pierre Schaeffer, Brian Eno, Glenn Gould, William S. Burroughs, and others.
    [Show full text]
  • IL CINEMA RITROVATO 2008 Cineteca Del Comune Di Bologna
    XXXVII Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero IL CINEMA RITROVATO 2008 Cineteca del Comune di Bologna XXII edizione / 22nd Edition Sabato 28 giugno - Sabato 5 luglio / Saturday 28 June - Saturday 5 July Questa edizione del festival è dedicata a Vittorio Martinelli This festival’s edition is dedicated to Vittorio Martinelli IL CINEMA RITROVATO 2008 Via Azzo Gardino, 65 - tel. 051 219 48 14 - fax 051 219 48 21 - cine- XXII edizione [email protected] Segreteria aperta dalle 9 alle 18 dal 28 giugno al 5 luglio / Secretariat Con il contributo di / With the financial support of: open June 28th - July 5th -from 9 am to 6 pm Comune di Bologna - Settore Cultura e Rapporti con l'Università •Cinema Lumière - Via Azzo Gardino, 65 - tel. 051 219 53 11 Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna •Cinema Arlecchino - Via Lame, 57 - tel. 051 52 21 75 Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per il Cinema Modalità di traduzione / Translation services: Regione Emilia-Romagna - Assessorato alla Cultura Tutti i film delle serate in Piazza Maggiore e le proiezioni presso il Programma MEDIA+ dell’Unione Europea Cinema Arlecchino hanno sottotitoli elettronici in italiano e inglese Tutte le proiezioni e gli incontri presso il Cinema Lumière sono tradot- Con la collaborazione di / In association with: ti in simultanea in italiano e inglese Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Bologna All evening screenings in Piazza Maggiore, as well as screenings at the L’Immagine Ritrovata Cinema Arlecchino, will be translated into Italian
    [Show full text]
  • «UOMO+VALLATA+MONTAGNA» (+ Pecora Brentegana)
    Comune di Brentonico Assessorato alla Cultura COMUNICATO STAMPA «UOMO+VALLATA+MONTAGNA» (+ Pecora Brentegana) Brentonico, 3 - 8 novembre 2015 «UOMO+VALLATA+MONTAGNA» è il titolo di una poesia composta da Umberto Boccioni sul Monte Altissimo di Monte Baldo a fine ottobre del 1915. L’autore evoca, con fiammante linguaggio ‘parolibero’ e figurazioni pittorico fotografiche, il territorio circostante, “come lo vede/percepisce/prova/sente in direzione-proiezione di parti ed organi del suo corpo”. E' stato scelto il titolo di questa mirabile lirica per una serie di eventi che vivranno a Brentonico dal 3 al 8 novembre 2015, eventi favoriti e realizzati in prevalenza da artisti, gruppi e associazioni di Brentonico. Il programma dell'iniziativa è stato illustrato oggi a Trento nell'ambito della piattaforma di comunicazione “Cultura Informa” dal sindaco di Brentonico, Christian Perenzoni e dagli assessori comunali alla Cultura, Quinto Canali, e all'Agricoltura e Turismo, Moreno Togni. Lo spunto storico è rilevante e fascinoso: il centenario della presenza sul Monte Baldo (Monte Altissimo e Dosso Casina) del “Battaglione Lombardo Volontari Ciclisti Automobilisti” , una formazione di combattenti inviati sulla prima linea del baldense al fianco degli Alpini del “Verona”. Tra questi vi erano i “futuristi”, cioè gli esponenti di quel movimento che sovvertì vigorosamente la cultura e le arti italiane ed europee del XX secolo: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , Umberto Boccioni , Luigi Russolo , Mario Sironi , Ugo Piatti , Anselmo Bucci , Achille Funi , Carlo Erba , Antonio Sant’Elia e tanti altri. Nel segno della creatività libera e dell’inventiva sperimentale - tratto ineluttabile dello spirito e dell’arte futurista - si è tracciato il programma di questa manifestazione che toccherà pratiche e attività musicali, pittoriche, teatrali, sportive, ricreative, storiche, documentaristiche, escursionistiche, laboratoriali, bibliografiche ed espositive.
    [Show full text]
  • Everyday Soundswith the Digital Intonarumori
    Proc. of the 8th Int. Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx’05), Madrid, Spain, September 20-22, 2005 EVERYDAY SOUNDS WITH THE DIGITAL INTONARUMORI Stefania Serafin Medialogy Aalborg University Copenhagen, Lautrupvang 15, 2750, Ballerup, DK [email protected] ABSTRACT A digital simulation of the Intonarumori, musical instruments in- vented by the Italian Futurist composer and painter Luigi Russolo is proposed. By building physical models of different members of the Intonarumori family, a preservation of an important contribu- tion to the musical heritage of the beginning of the 20th century is achieved. 1. INTRODUCTION At the beginning of the 20th century, the Italian composer and painter Luigi Russolo designed and built a family of new musical Figure 2: Schematic representation of a basic Intonarumori. The instruments which he called Intonarumori (noise intoners). Each player, by rotating the crank, rotates the wheel which excites the Intonarumori was made of a colorful parallelepipedal sound box string. By moving the lever, the tension of the string varies. At with a speaker on its front. Inside the box, a gut or metal string was the same time, a moving bridge varies the size of the vibrating excited by a rotating wheel. The speed of the wheel was changed string. The sound produced resonates thanks to the drum-skin and by the player by using a crank, while the tension of the string was the radiating horn. varied by using a lever. Such instruments were acoustic noise gen- erators which allowed to simulate different everyday noisy sonori- ties. a taxonomy of everyday sounds categorized by six different fam- ilies.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded 2021-09-26T23:35:06Z
    Provided by the author(s) and University College Dublin Library in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite the published version when available. Title "The Futurist Mountains": F.T. Marinetti's experiences of mountain combat in the First World War Authors(s) Daly, Selena Publication date 2013-06-24 Publication information Modern Italy, 18 (4): 323-338 Publisher Routledge (Taylor & Francis) Item record/more information http://hdl.handle.net/10197/4507 Publisher's statement This is an electronic version of an article published in Modern Italy. Modern Italy is available online at: www.tandfonline.com//doi/abs/10.1080/13532944.2013.806289 Publisher's version (DOI) 10.1080/13532944.2013.806289 Downloaded 2021-09-26T23:35:06Z The UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa) © Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. ‘TheFuturistmountains’:FilippoTommasoMarinetti’sexperiencesof mountaincombatintheFirstWorldWar SelenaDaly 1VCMJTIFEJO.PEFSO*UBMZ +VOF Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s first experience of active combat was as a member of the Lombard Battalion of Volunteer Cyclists and Motorists in the autumn of 1915, when he fought in the mountains of Trentino at the border of Italy and Austria Hungary. This article examines his experience of mountain combat and how he communicated aspects of it both to specialist, Futurist audiences and to the general public and soldiers, through newspaper articles, manifestos, ‘words in freedom’ drawings, speeches and essays written between 1915 and 1917. Marinetti’s aim in all of these wartime writings was to gain maximum support for the Futurist movement.
    [Show full text]
  • THE ORCHESTRA of FUTURIST NOISE INTONERS Luciano Chessa, Director
    Intonarumori, ArtBasel Miami Beach, 2011, photo by Javier Sanchez THE ORCHESTRA OF FUTURIST NOISE INTONERS Luciano Chessa, Director A Performa 09 Commission These eccentric hurdy-gurdy instruments first created in 1913 still sounded musically radical after all these years. Roberta Smith for The New York Times The Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners is the only complete replica of futurist composer/sound artist Luigi Russolo’s legendary intonarumori orchestra. The orchestra tours worldwide, presenting concerts that feature historical and new works commissioned from an all-star cast of experimental composers, some performing live alongside this orchestra of raucous mechanical synthesizers. The orchestra’s composers include Sonic Youth’s founding guitarist Lee Ranaldo, seminal composer/vocalist Joan La Barbara, Einstürzende Neubauten frontman and Nick Cave collaborator Blixa Bargeld, avant-garde saxophonist John Butcher, Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle vocalist Mike Patton, avant-garde musician Elliott Sharp, and composer/vocalist Jennifer Walshe collaborating with late composer and film/video artist Tony Conrad, among others. For further details and touring information contact Esa Nickle at Performa on +1 212 366 5700, or email [email protected] HISTORY As part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of Italian Futurism, the Performa 09 biennial, in collaboration with the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), invited Luciano Chessa to reconstruct Russolo’s intonarumori. Supervising Bay Area craftsman Keith Carey, Chessa succeeded in recreating for the first time Russolo’s earliest intonarumori orchestra, originally unveiled in Milan in the Summer of 1913 (16 instruments—8 noise families of 1-3 instruments each, in various registers).
    [Show full text]
  • The Croaker: Design and Evaluation of a New Multimodal Interface
    THE CROAKER: DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A NEW MULTIMODAL INTERFACE Stefania Serafin Amalia De Gotzen Medialogy University of Verona Aalborg University Copenhagen Dept. of Computer Science Lautrupvang 15, 2750 Ballerup, DK [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT • Screeches, creaks, rustles, buzzes, crackles and scrapes. In this paper we introduce the Croaker, a novel input de- • Noise made by percussion on metal, wood, skin, vice inspired by Russolo’s Intonarumori. We describe the stone, etc. motivations behind the design of this instrument, and its • Voices of animal and man: shouts, screams, groans, applications in human computer interaction (HCI) and mu- shrieks, howls, laughs, wheezes and sobs. sic. In this paper we introduce the Croaker, a new interface 1. INTRODUCTION shown in Figure 6 inspired by Russolo’s Intonarumori. Section 2 describes the different instruments belonging to Real-time gestural control of computer generated sounds the original Intonarumori family, Section 3 describes the has become in the past years a common trend in the com- Croaker, Section 4 describes the sound synthesis engine puter music community. A conference dedicated to this connected to the Croaker, Section 5 shows the Max/MSP topic, called NIME (which stands for New Interfaces for implementation and Section 6 presents conclusions and Musical Expression) has been created in 2001, and several future work. new input devices have been designed [14, 6]. Such devices can be classified as 1) instrument-like 2. RUSSOLO’S INTONARUMORI controllers, which try to emulate the control interfaces of existing acoustical instruments; 2) instrument-inspired Figure 1 shows Luigi Russolo and his colleague Ugo Pi- controllers, which follow characteristics of existing in- atti playing the original Intonarumori at around 1913.
    [Show full text]
  • Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Koenig Books Isbn 978-3-86560-706-5 Early 20Th Century Russia · Andrey Smirnov
    SOUND IN Z Russia, 1917 — a time of complex political upheaval that resulted in the demise of the Russian monarchy and seemingly offered great prospects for a new dawn of art and science. Inspired by revolutionary ideas, artists and enthusiasts developed innumerable musical and audio inventions, instruments and ideas often long ahead of their time – a culture that was to be SOUND IN Z cut off in its prime as it collided with the totalitarian state of the 1930s. Smirnov’s account of the period offers an engaging introduction to some of the key figures and their work, including Arseny Avraamov’s open-air performance of 1922 featuring the Caspian flotilla, artillery guns, hydroplanes and all the town’s factory sirens; Solomon Nikritin’s Projection Theatre; Alexei Gastev, the polymath who coined the term ‘bio-mechanics’; pioneering film maker Dziga Vertov, director of the Laboratory of Hearing and the Symphony of Noises; and Vladimir Popov, ANDREY SMIRNO the pioneer of Noise and inventor of Sound Machines. Shedding new light on better-known figures such as Leon Theremin (inventor of the world’s first electronic musical instrument, the Theremin), the publication also investigates the work of a number of pioneers of electronic sound tracks using ‘graphical sound’ techniques, such as Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, Nikolai Voinov, Evgeny Sholpo and Boris Yankovsky. From V eavesdropping on pianists to the 23-string electric guitar, microtonal music to the story of the man imprisoned for pentatonic research, Noise Orchestras to Machine Worshippers, Sound in Z documents an extraordinary and largely forgotten chapter in the history of music and audio technology.
    [Show full text]