Luigi Russolo

Biography

Luigi Russolo was perhaps the first noise artist. His 1913 manifesto, L'Arte dei Rumori (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 he envisioned noise music as its future replacement.

Russolo 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 instruments have survived: some were destroyed in World War II; while others have been lost. Replicas of the instruments have since been built and performed. (See the Intonarumori page.)

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 the several genres in this category. Many artists are now familiar with Russolo's manifesto.

Connections to Fascism

Russolo, like many other Futurist artists, is often associated with Italian fascism. In addition to his association with the Futurist artist and poet F. T. Marinetti, who co-authored the Fascist Manifesto (1919), Russolo presented his work at exhibitions sponsored by Mussolini's government. His biographer Luciano Chessa argues that some have attempted to erase Russolo's involvement with fascism from scholarship, but that his permanent return to Italy in 1933 and subsequent writings signaled acceptance of and allegiance to Mussolini's regime.

Collaboration with Antonio Russolo

Antonio Russolo, another Italian Futurist composer and Luigi's brother, produced a recording of two works featuring the original Intonarumori. The phonograph recording, made in 1921, included works entitled Corale and Serenata, which combined conventional orchestral music set against the sound of the noise machines. It is the only surviving contemporaneous sound recording of Luigi Russolo's noise music. Russolo and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti gave the first concert of Futurist music, complete with intonarumori, in April 1914, causing a riot. The program comprised four Noise Networks.

Gallery

File:Luigi Russolo, 1911, Souvenir d'une nuit (Memories of a Night), oil on canvas, 99 x 99 cm, private collection.jpg|Souvenir d'une nuit (Memories of a Night), 1911 oil on canvas, 99 × 99 cm, private collection File:Luigi Russolo, 1912, Sintesi plastica dei movimenti di una donna (Synthèse plastique des mouvements d'une femme), oil on canvas, 86 x 65 cm, Musée de Grenoble.jpg|Sintesi plastica dei movimenti di una donna, 1912 oil on canvas, Museum of Grenoble File:Luigi Russolo self-portrait-with-skulls-1909.jpg|Self-portrait with Skulls, 1909 painting File:Russolo-Laveno-Mombello.jpg|Russolo's Grave in Laveno-Mombello File:Luigi Russolo - Profumo (1910).jpg|Profumo (meaning "scent", "fragrance", 1910) File:Luigi Russolo La Rivolta 1911.jpg|La Rivolta (The Revolt), 1911 oil on canvas File:La musica, Luigi Russolo.jpg|La Musica (a pianist playing for his audience), 1911–12 oil on canvas File:Luigi Russolo solidity-of-fog-1912.jpg|Solidity of Fog, 1912 oil on canvas File:Risveglio di una citta.jpg|1913 score of en-harmonic notation, for Intonarumori File:Intonarumori, 1913.jpg|Intonarumori, 1913, instruments built for music-piece Bruitism, partly operating on electricity File:Luigi Russolo dynamism-of-a-car-1913.jpg|Dynamism of a Car, 1913 oil painting File:Luigi Russolo soapdish-1929.jpg|Soap-dish, 1929 oil painting File:Luigi Russolo sole-nascosto-1946.jpg|Landscape with trees, c. 1940s painting

Publications

• Duccio Dogheria, Fondo Luigi Russolo. Inventario, inventory of the artist's archive at the Archivio del 900 of the Mart in Rovereto

Notes

References

• Chessa, Luciano: Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult. University of California Press, 2012.
• Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noise (Futurist Manifesto, 1913), translated by Robert Filliou

References

1. (2012-03-31). "Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult". University of California Press.
2. In ''Futurism and Musical Notes'', Daniele Lombardi discusses the French composer [Louis] Carol-Bérard (1881–1942); a pupil of [[Isaac Albéniz]], Carol-Bérard is said to have composed a ''Symphony of Mechanical Force''s in 1910 – but little evidence as emerged thus far to establish this assertion.
3. [http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/noises.html Luigi Russolo, "The Art of Noises"]
4. Chessa, Luciano, ''Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult'', University of California Press, 2012, p. 3
5. Barclay Brown, "The Noise Instruments of Luigi Russolo", ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'' 20, nos. 1 & 2 (Fall–Winter 1981, Spring–Summer 1982): 31–48; citation on 36
6. [[Paul Hegarty (musician). 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 Ritzschriftreihen [etched grooves]." He presents detailed descriptions for manipulating discs, creating "real sound forms" to train people to be "true music receivers and creators" ([http://ubu.com/papers/rice.html " A Brief history of Anti-Records and Conceptual Records"] by [[Ron Rice]] via [[UbuWeb]], from ''Unfiled: Music Under New Technology'', [[Chris Cutler]] (ed.) 1994{{Page needed. (December 2009)
8. Chessa, Luciano, ''Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult'', University of California Press, 2012, p. 3
9. Tracy, Peter. "Luigi Russolo's Cacophonous Futures".
10. Chessa, Luciano. (2012). "Luigi Russolo, futurist: noise, visual arts, and the occult". University of California Press.
11. (28 December 2019). "Luciano Chessa: 'Russolo's Antifascism Revisited' + performance: 'La Battaglia Di Adrianopoli'".
12. [[Daniel Albright. Albright, Daniel]] (ed.) ''Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Source''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. p. 174
13. [[Larry Sitsky]]. (2002). "Music of the Twentieth-century Avant-garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook". Greenwood Publishing Group.
14. Luigi Russolo, ''The Art of Noise'' (Futurist Manifesto, 1913), translated by Robert Filliou. p. 14