tags: mus-407 musique-concrete electroacoustic music

Futurism

Futurism is an avant-garde, cross-disciplinary movement starting in Italy in 1909.

• focus on technology, industry, machines, speed, war
• provocative, riots, run-ins with police
• patriotic/political movement seeking aesthetic and cultural change

Filippo Marinetti, founder, author of Manifesto of Futurist Poetry, 1909

Francesco Balilla Pratella, author of Manifesto of Futurist Musicians, 1910

• rejection of traditional musical instruments & principles
• emphasized new ways of thinking about [sound]
• artistic embrace of all natural & human-made sounds

Contributor to Futurism: Luigi Russolo

• author, The Art of Noises (1913)
• excerpt: six "sound families" of the Futurist orchestra
• designed and built noise intoners (intonarumori)
  • various acoustic sound-generating devices with some [pitch]/intensity control
  • public concerts ca. 1914

Futurism was largely halted/disrupted by WWI.

Sources

• MUS 407 The Studio Age: Musique Concrète