Luigi Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an
Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913).[1] He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of "noise concerts" in 1913-14 and then again after World War I, notably in
Paris in 1921.[2] He is also one of the first theorists of electronic music.
Luigi Russolo (1885-1947), "Self Portrait with Skulls", 1908, oil on canvas, 67 x 50 cm
Biography
Luigi Russolo was perhaps the first noise artist.[3][4] His 1913 manifesto, L'Arte dei Rumori, translated as The Art of Noises, stated that the industrial revolution had given modern men a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds. Russolo found traditional melodic music confining and envisioned noise music as its future replacement.
Luigi Russolo
The Art of Noises classified "noise-sound" into six groups:
1. Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms
2. Whistling, Hissing, Puffing
3. Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttering, Gurgling
4. Screeching, Creaking, Rustling, Buzzing [5], Crackling, Scraping [5]
5. Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc.
6. Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs
He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori and assembled a noise orchestra to perform with them. A performance of his Gran Concerto Futuristico (1917) was met with strong disapproval and violence from the audience, as Russolo himself had predicted. None of his intoning devices have survived, though recently some have been reconstructed and used in performances. Although Russolo's works bear little resemblance to modern noise music, his pioneering creations cannot be overlooked as an essential stage in the evolution of this genre,[6][7] and many artists are now familiar with his manifesto.
Luigi Russolo
At first the art of music sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.[8]
Antonio Russolo, another Italian Futurist composer and Luigi's brother, produced a recording of two works featuring the original Intonarumori. The 1921 made phonograph with works entitled Corale and Serenata, combined conventional orchestral music set against the famous noise machines and is the only surviving sound recording.[9]
Russolo and Marinetti gave the first concert of Futurist music, complete with intonarumori, in April 1914 (causing a riot).[10] The program comprised four "networks of noises" with the following titles:
* Awakening of Capital.
* Meeting of cars and aeroplanes
* Dining on the terrace of the Casino and
* Skirmish in the oasis.
All of his instruments were destroyed in World War II during the bombings on Paris. In 2009 replica's are being made for the Performa Festival in New York City, where his musical pieces were played.
Further Reading & Audio Clips
Further reading
* Luigi Russolo's "The Art of Noises"
Audio
* [2] mp3 audio files of the music of Luigi Russolo on UbuWeb
* Three audio clips by Luigi Russolo: Serenata, Corale and Risveglio di una città. (Thereminvox.com)
* Modern recordings of noise intoners and a fragment of Luigi Russolo's key Futurist
References
Ian Chilvers & John Glaves-Smith, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press
External links
* Intonarumori: history, working and photographs of Russolo's Intonarumori (noise makers) at thereminvox.com
* Media Art Net | Russolo, Luigi: Intonarumori (at medienkunstnetz.de)
* Peggy Guggenheim Collection: Luigi Russolo
* "Art of Noise" at zakros.com
* JahSonic.com: Luigi Russolo
* Bob Osborn's Futurism: Luigi Russolo
* Prof. Russolo & His Noise Intoners
* [3] mp3 audio files of the noise music of Luigi Russolo on UbuWeb
* Russolo's Intonarumori
Footnotes
1. ^ Ian Chilvers & John Glaves-Smith, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press, p.619
2. ^ Ian Chilvers & John Glaves-Smith, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press, p. 620
3. ^ In Futurism and Musical Notes, Daniele Lombardi discusses the mysterious case of the French composer Carol-Bérard; a pupil of Isaac Albeniz. Carol-Bérard is said to have composed a Symphony of Mechanical Forces in 1910 - but little evidence as emerged thus far to establish this assertion.
4. ^ [1] Luigi Russolo, "The Art of Noises".
5. ^ a b The original Italian ronzii and crepitii are most easily translated with humming and rubbing respectively, but the connotations these words have in the English language do not fit well with the other sounds in this group; for this reason, alternative translations give more fitting buzzing and scraping. For example:
* Luigi Russolo (1916). "The Art of Noises (English translation)". Niuean Pop Cultural Archive. Archived from the original on 2010-11-27. http://www.webcitation.org/5uY3woYNG. Retrieved 2010-11-27.
6. ^ Paul Hegarty, Noise/Music: A History (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2007), pp. 13-14.
7. ^ László Moholy-Nagy in 1923 recognized the unprecedented efforts of the Italian Futurists to broaden our perception of sound using noise. In an article in Der Sturm #7, he outlined the fundamentals of his own experimentation: "I have suggested to change the gramophone from a reproductive instrument to a productive one, so that on a record without prior acoustic information, the acoustic information, the acoustic phenomenon itself originates by engraving the necessary Ritchriftreihen (etched grooves)." He presents detailed descriptions for manipulating discs, creating "real sound forms" to train people to be "true music receivers and creators" (Rice 1994,[page needed]).
8. ^ Russolo, Luigi from The Art of Noises, circa 1913.
9. ^ Albright, Daniel (ed.) Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Source. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2004. p. 174
10. ^ Benjamin Thorn, "Luigi Russolo (1885–1947)", in Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook, edited by Larry Sitsky, foreword by Jonathan Kramer, 415–19 (Westport and London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002). ISBN 0-313-29689-8. Citation on page 415.
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