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Russolo’s Intonarumori: Musical Innovation at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Published/Copyright: June 23, 2012
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International Yearbook of Futurism Studies
From the journal International Yearbook of Futurism Studies Volume 2 Issue 1

Russolo’s Intonarumori:Musical Innovation at the Beginning of the Twentieth CenturyStefania Serafi nThis essay offers a description of several instruments created by the Futurist compos-er and painter Luigi Russolo and provides a detailed analysis of the acoustics of the intonarumori developed in 1913 and fi rst presented in Modena on 2 June 1913. My description is based on patents, letters and documents available from the time when Russolo created his instruments, and offers a consideration of some recent attempts to reconstruct these instruments. Such recreations may not be completely faithful to Russolo’s original instruments, but nonetheless will provide some insights into the acoustic and physical characteristics of the intonarumori. This essay also describes the historical context in which Russolo performed his work and presents considerations of why Russolo’s ideas and innovations in the fi eld of design and construction of musical instruments were not successful at the time. Moreover, this essay considers Russolo’s heritage after the Second World War and suggests how several composers and musical movements have been affected by Russolo’s work, and are still being af-fected nowadays.Keywords: noise instruments, intonarumori, everyday sounds, noise music, bruitism, musique concrèteIntroductionAt the beginning of the twentieth century, and as a direct consequence of his involvement with the Futurist movement, the Italian composer and painter Luigi Russolo designed and built a family of new musical instru-ments called intonarumori (noise intoners). These instruments arose out of Russolo’s theories regarding the structure of the Futurist orchestra and refl ected his belief that the traditional concepts of music should be re-placed with one that was based on a wide range of sonorities related to, but not simply imitative of, the noises of everyday life in modern soci-ety. Since conventional musical instruments were far too limited in their sound spectrum, Russolo invented several types of machines to replace or complement them. In his manifesto and subsequent book of the same DOI 10.1515/futur-2012.0020
Published Online: 2012-06-23
Published in Print: 2012-06

©2012 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.

Articles in the same Issue

  2. Table of Contents
  3. Editorial
  4. Nuovi archivi del futurismo
  5. Růžena Zátková: An ‘Atypical’ Futurist
  6. Plurilinguism and the Avant-gardes
  7. Futurism in the “Modernist Journals Project”
  8. Futurism in Vienna
  9. What is Miraiha? Academic Discourses on Japanese Futurism
  10. Broom and Futurist Aristocracy: When the Futurist Movement Met the Machine Age
  11. Marinetti in Berlin
  12. Wireless Modernity: Mexican Estridentistas, Italian and Russian Futurism
  13. Poetic Experiments in Polish Futurism: Imitative, Eclectic or Original?
  14. The Futurist Invasion of Great Britain, 1910–1914
  15. The War Diaries of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Ernst Jünger
  16. Ethno-Futurism in Estonia
  17. Futurism in Venezuela: Arturo Uslar Pietri and the Reviews Indice and válvula
  18. Henri-Martin Barzun’s ‘Simultaneism’ between the Abbaye de Créteil and Futurism: The Individual and the Crowd in Late-Symbolist Art
  19. Finland and Futurism
  20. From Radio to the Internet: Italian Futurism, New Technologies and the Persistence of the Book
  21. Russolo’s Intonarumori: Musical Innovation at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
  22. A Bibliography of Publications on Futurism Published in 2009–2011
  23. List of Illustrations and Provenance Descriptions
  24. Notes on Contributors
  25. Name Index
  26. Subject Index
  27. Geographical Index
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https://doi.org/10.1515/futur-2012.0020

Articles in the same Issue

  2. Table of Contents
  3. Editorial
  4. Nuovi archivi del futurismo
  5. Růžena Zátková: An ‘Atypical’ Futurist
  6. Plurilinguism and the Avant-gardes
  7. Futurism in the “Modernist Journals Project”
  8. Futurism in Vienna
  9. What is Miraiha? Academic Discourses on Japanese Futurism
  10. Broom and Futurist Aristocracy: When the Futurist Movement Met the Machine Age
  11. Marinetti in Berlin
  12. Wireless Modernity: Mexican Estridentistas, Italian and Russian Futurism
  13. Poetic Experiments in Polish Futurism: Imitative, Eclectic or Original?
  14. The Futurist Invasion of Great Britain, 1910–1914
  15. The War Diaries of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Ernst Jünger
  16. Ethno-Futurism in Estonia
  17. Futurism in Venezuela: Arturo Uslar Pietri and the Reviews Indice and válvula
  18. Henri-Martin Barzun’s ‘Simultaneism’ between the Abbaye de Créteil and Futurism: The Individual and the Crowd in Late-Symbolist Art
  19. Finland and Futurism
  20. From Radio to the Internet: Italian Futurism, New Technologies and the Persistence of the Book
  21. Russolo’s Intonarumori: Musical Innovation at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
  22. A Bibliography of Publications on Futurism Published in 2009–2011
  23. List of Illustrations and Provenance Descriptions
  24. Notes on Contributors
  25. Name Index
  26. Subject Index
  27. Geographical Index
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