Luigi Russolo facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Luigi Russolo
Luigi Russolo ca. 1916
Background information
Birth name	Luigi Russolo
Born	(1885-04-30)30 April 1885 Portogruaro, Italy
Died	4 February 1947(1947-02-04) (aged 61) Laveno Mombello, Italy
Genres	Futurism experimental avant-garde noise
Occupation(s)	Composer painter custom instrument builder
Years active	1901–1947

Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of noise music concerts in 1913–14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921. He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori. Russolo is also associated with Italian fascism, for example through exhibiting his work at exhibitions sponsored by Mussolini's government, and through collaboration with Marinetti, author of the Fascist Manifesto.

Biography

Russolo and his assistant Ugo Piatti in their Milan studio in 1913 with the Intonarumori (noise machines)

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.

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

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  Souvenir d'une nuit (Memories of a Night), 1911 oil on canvas, 99 × 99 cm, private collection

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  Sintesi plastica dei movimenti di una donna, 1912 oil on canvas, Museum of Grenoble

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  Self-portrait with Skulls, 1909 painting

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  Russolo's Grave in Laveno-Mombello

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  Profumo (meaning "scent", "fragrance", 1910)

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  La Rivolta (The Revolt), 1911 oil on canvas

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  La Musica (a pianist playing for his audience), 1911–12 oil on canvas

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  Solidity of Fog, 1912 oil on canvas

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  1913 score of en-harmonic notation, for Intonarumori

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  Intonarumori, 1913, instruments built for music-piece Bruitism, partly operating on electricity

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  Dynamism of a Car, 1913 oil painting

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  Landscape with trees, c. 1940s painting

See also

In Spanish: Luigi Russolo para niños

• Ugo Piatti
• List of noise musicians
• Theosophy and visual arts § Russolo