Futurist artist who invented 'noise music'
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| Luigi Russolo, pictured at the time he published his manifesto, in 1916 |
Russolo originally chose to become a painter and went to
live in Milan where he met and was influenced by other artists in the Futurist
movement.
Along with other leading figures in the movement, such as Carlo Carrà, he signed both the Manifesto of Futurist Painters and the
Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting as the artists set out how they saw
Futurism being represented on canvas, and afterwards participated in Futurist
art exhibitions.
Russolo issued his own manifesto, L’arte dei rumori, - The Art
of Noises - in 1913, which he expanded into book form in 1916.
He stated that the industrial revolution had given modern
man a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds. He found traditional,
melodic music confining and envisioned noise music replacing it in the future.
Russolo invented intonarumori - noise-emitting machines - and
conducted concerts using these machines. The audiences reacted with either
enthusiasm or hostility to the style of music he produced.
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| Luigi Russolo (left), his fellow Futurist Ugo Piatti, and a collection of the intonarumori machines he used for his music |
The Art of Noises classified noise-sound into six groups,
which included roars and thunderings, whistling and hissing, whispers and
murmurs, beating different surfaces to make noises, voices of animals and
people, and screeching, creaking, rustling, buzzing, crackling and scraping.
When Italy entered the First World War, Russolo volunteered
to fight but was seriously wounded in 1917 and had to spend 18 months in
hospital.
After he recovered, Russolo held three Futurist concerts in
Paris during 1921 that were acclaimed by Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Ravel.
Russolo invented a series of musical instruments, rumorarmoni,
which appeared in Futurist films for which he composed the music. These films
have since been lost.
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| Russolo (left) with other Futursts in Paris in 1912 |
When Russolo returned to Italy in 1933, he settled in Cerro
on Lake Maggiore and took up painting again in a realist style that he called
classic-modern. He died at Cerro in 1947.
Antonio Russolo, Luigi’s brother and another Futurist
composer, 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 produced by the noise machines. It is the only surviving
contemporaneous recording of Luigi Russolo’s noise music.
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| The church of the Abbey of Summaga at Portogruaro |
Portogruaro, where Russolo was born, was officially founded
in 1140 when the local Archbishop gave a group of fishermen the right to settle
there and build a river port. It was the medieval successor to the Roman town
of Concordia Saggitaria and many Roman remains found there are now displayed in
the Museo Concordiese. In 1420 Portogruaro’s citizens requested membership of
the Republic of Venice. Portogruaro was then under Austrian control from 1815
until 1866 when it became part of the newly-unified Kingdom of Italy. It is now
in the Veneto region on the main road linking Venice with Trieste. Among the
many historic sights is the 11th century Abbey of Summaga, which has 11th and
12th century frescoes.
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| The harbour of Leveno-Mombello, of which Cerro is a hamlet |
Cerro, where Luigi Russolo died, is a hamlet of
Laveno-Mombello on Lake Maggiore in the province of Varese. Laveno-Mombello is
a port town that connects Verbania and the Borromean Islands with Varese and
has beautiful views of the lake and islands.
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More reading:
How Futurist painter Carlo Carrà captured violence at the funeral of an anarchist
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