10. Zanovello, Luigi Russolo, 19.
11. Zanovello, Luigi Russolo, 62. The appellation “magician” occurs among other futurists as well; on one occasion Cangiullo called Balla “mago” (see Fagiolo dell’Arco, Compenetrazioni, fig. 8).
12. Marinetti, La grande Milano, 106.
13. Russolo’s letter to his wife of July 1, 1927, is quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 278. The practice of improvisation was common among futurists; this is confirmed by Mario Bartoccini’s and Aldo Mantia’s 1921 manifesto “L’improvvisazione musicale,” which some consider to be the first avant-garde statement about improvisation.
14. Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 34.
15. Marinetti, La grande Milano, 83.
16. See Nietzsche’s Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen. The common Italian translation for Nietzsche’s title is Considerazioni inattuali. The paragraphs on Nietzsche are my personal reaction to Nietzsche’s ideas after having reread them in an effort to understand how the futurists might have interpreted them. I may have been influenced by Nicola Abbagnano’s interpretation of Nietzsche. The reader will be well aware that there is ongoing debate among philosophers about the interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought. Obviously, there is no opportunity to review that debate here.
17. In futurism’s founding manifesto of 1909, for instance, Marinetti attacked the “heavy bodywork of common sense” as useless.
18. Marinetti’s mention of the noise harmonium (rumorarmonium) in this passage is not chronologically accurate, as Russolo did not start to work on the instrument until 1921. Marinetti’s lapse here may be the result of writing a diary entry in retrospect. Like many of Marinetti’s texts, La grande Milano was mostly dictated, and work on this text—which involved his wife, Benedetta, his two daughters, Vittoria and Ala, and the Venetian nurse who took care of Marinetti at that time—occurred primarily in Venice between October 1943 and August 1944; see Marinetti, La grande Milano, xix, xx.
19. Zanovello, Luigi Russolo, 91.
20. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 292.
21. Zanovello, Luigi Russolo, 19.
22. Celant, “Futurismo esoterico,” 111n9.
23. Among the pre-Hoepli writings, see Giovanni Guglielmo, “Sui raggi catodici, sui raggi Roentgen e sulle dimensioni e la densità degli atomi,” Rendiconti della R[eale] Accademia dei Lincei: Classe di scienze fisiche, matematiche e naturali 8, no. 1, series 5, fasc. 8 (1899): 379–85.
24. Henderson, Duchamp in Context, 5.
25. Quoted in Maffina, 139–43. Although Russolo is actually advocating for a separation between sound and noise, Russolo’s argument is de facto contemplated by Helmholtz when he claimed that “noises and musical tones may certainly intermingle in very various degrees, and pass insensibly into one another, but their extremes are wildly separated.” See Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, On the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (New York: Dover, 1954), 7. It is likely that Russolo read Helmholtz indirectly, by way of popularizations such as those published by Hoepli.
26. On Duchamp’s influence on X-rays, see the chapter “Duchamp and Invisible Reality 1911–1912,” in Henderson, Duchamp in Context, 3–28.
27. This concern for deep reality is comparable to the interest, also shared by artists of the period, in theories on the fourth dimension and non-Euclidean geometries.
28. In “La pittura futurista: Manifesto tecnico,” in I manifesti del futurismo, 28.
29. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 134.
30. See Henderson, Duchamp in Context, 7.
31. Celant, “Futurismo esoterico,” 113n18.
32. Celant, “Futurismo esoterico,” 113n18. Among the four scholars cited by Celant, Lombroso was well known to Italian readers interested in parapsychology and spiritualism; the young Balla was among his students at the Turin Academy (Celant, “Futurismo esoterico,” 111).
CHAPTER 6
1. Russolo, “Conferenza sull’architettura tenuta da Russolo alla Galleria Borromini di Como nel 1944,” in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 307.
2. This position is frequently found in futurist writings from various periods.
3. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 133. Despite Russolo’s emphasis here and in the following excerpt, he has been misunderstood. Among the most famous example of this misunderstanding is the attack by Edgar Varèse, in his article in “VERBE,” 391 [vol.] 5 (1917): 42.
4. In Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 134.
5. In Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 177.
6. In Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 135. A similar concept is also repeated at the closing of L’arte dei rumori (176).
7. Russolo, “L’architecture musicale et le rumorharmonium,” Circle et carré I (March 15, 1930); reprinted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 220.
8. Lacerba (May 15, 1914); reprinted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 46.
9. Carrà, “Piani plastici come espansione sferica dello spazio,” Lacerba (March 15, 1913).
10. Carrà, “Piani plastici come espansione sferica dello spazio,” Lacerba (March 15, 1913).
11. Besant and Leadbeater, Thought-forms, 66–76; Leadbeater, The Hidden Side of Things, 195–210.
12. A subject gifted with particular psychic powers in a state of trance can create fluctuating thought-forms endowed with the power to overcome the barrier of the aura; he can instill them with his spirit through etheric waves—vibrations—and make them materialize. This theory can be found in various theosophical writings, including Leadbeater’s The Hidden Side of Things.
13. See the facsimile of this manifesto in Fagiolo dell’Arco, Balla: Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo.
14. In Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 163.
15. In Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 175–76.
16. In Marinetti, Teoria e invenzione futurista, 106; reprinted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 156.
17. Russolo, Al di là della materia, 201.
18. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 266. The addition of word to sound, color, clay, or marble, as another material element to be subjugated in the artistic process, is related to Marinetti’s classification of onomatopoeiae in “Lo splendore geometrico e meccanico e la sensibilità numerica.”
19. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 306–7.
20. Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 122.
21. Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 314–15. These pages rephrase a position on Leonardo’s Last Supper that is already present in Russolo, Al di là della materia, 272.
22. Steiner, “Investigations into Life between Death and Rebirth,” in Life between Death and Rebirth: Sixteen Lectures by Rudolf Steiner (New York: Anthroposophic Press, Inc., 1968), 3–30; henceforth Steiner, Life between Death and Rebirth.
23. I use the term theosophical here because Rudolf Steiner in 1912 was still operating within the Theosophical Society. The tensions between Steiner and Besant can be traced back to 1907, but Steiner did not officially leave the society until 1913. Only then did he found the Anthroposophical Society. See Floyd McKnight, Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy (New York: Anthroposophical Society in America, 1967), 22.
24. “Investigations into Life between Death and Rebirth,” part 2, in Steiner, Life between Death and Rebirth, 25.
25. “Investigations into Life between Death and Rebirth” part 1, in Steiner, Life Between Death and Rebirth, 6.
26. Steiner’s later condemnation of mediums, states of trance, and spiritualism is mentioned in Galbreath, “A Glossary of Spiritual and Related Terms,” 370.
27. Russolo’s letter to Margherita Sarfatti, dated August 22, 1916, is reprinted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 269. “Him” is capitalized in the original.
28. Russo
lo’s eulogy is presented in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 266. Russolo was familiar with the language used in séances, having participated in several in Paris in the mid-1920s.
29. Marinetti, La grande Milano, 104.
30. Russolo in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 135.
31. “L’allegra serata futurista al teatro Storchi,” La gazzetta dell’Emilia (June 3, 1913); reprinted (without the author’s name) in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 29–31.
32. Although the tone of the article may have been ironic, the journalist never questioned the honesty and earnestness of Russolo and his assistant, Piatti. In fact, the article only sounds ironic because of the contrast between Russolo and Piatti’s almost pedantic seriousness and the audience’s ferocious sarcasm. Because I shall focus on the portrayal of Russolo’s behavior throughout the evening, I have edited out all the sections in which the journalist describes the audience. Audience reactions did not differ significantly from those at subsequent intonarumori performances, and they are well documented in articles and books that deal with futurist performances.
33. For a sample of this review, see Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 44.
34. In L’Italia (October 11, 1914); see Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 55–57.
CHAPTER 7
1. Risveglio di una città is the only spirale by Russolo of which at least a fragment remains. This fragment, consisting of seven bars (see Lacerba [March 1, 1914]), is not definitively known to be the opening of the piece, though this is frequently claimed.
2. Françoise Escal, “Le futurisme et la musique,” Europe 53 (1975): 92f; henceforth Escal, “Le futurisme et la musique.” Escal quotes Russolo’s point 6 of the manifesto The Art of Noises from the French edition translated by Maurice Lemâitre. As the original Italian text differs somewhat from the Lemâitre translation, I have retranslated this excerpt. For the original text, see Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 134.
3. Escal, “Le futurisme et la musique,” 93.
4. The study of alchemy was revived in the occultist circles of Milan in the early years of the twentieth century by Angelo Marzorati, standard-bearer of panpsychism and other occult activities with which the futurists were familiar. See Lamberto Pignotti and Emanuela Andreani, “Paolo Buzzi, ‘L’ellisse e la spirale film: Parole in libertà,’ ” in Buzzi, L’ellisse e la spirale (Florence: S.P.E.S., 1990), liv; henceforth Pignotti and Andreani, “Paolo Buzzi, ‘L’ellisse e la spirale.’ ” See also Celant, “Futurismo esoterico,” 109f.
5. On the alchemical vas in the context of futurism, see Pignotti and Andreani, “Paolo Buzzi, ‘L’ellisse e la spirale,’ ” liv–lv.
6. According to Besant’s and Leadbetter’s Thought-forms, the aura is composed of different bodies that could become a background against which several states of mind project thought-forms. See also Galbreath, “A Glossary of Spiritual and Related Terms,” 390.
7. This is what Giovanni Macchia declared in his theosophical elaborations in Pirandello o la stanza della tortura (Milan: Mondadori, 1981), 60. Pirandello’s interest in the occult is well documented. For a brief time in the late 1920s—but before 1929, according to the diary of the actress (and Pirandello’s muse) Marta Abba, as well as the testimony of the writer Paola Masino—Pirandello’s Parisian agent was the same Guido Torre who, according to Maffina, introduced Russolo to magnetization in the early 1930s.
8. Soffici, “Raggio,” Lacerba (July 1, 1914).
9. Boccioni, “Il cerchio non si chiude,” Lacerba (March 1, 1914).
10. From chapter 7 of The Art of Noises, quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 176. Russolo’s aggressive operation forces noise to be “enharmonically” intoned. Russolo’s chapter title, “La conquista dell’enarmonismo,” is similarly militaristic, and chapter 5 is entirely dedicated to the noises of modern warfare.
11. Marinetti, La grande Milano, 104.
12. See Steiner’s two-part Milan lecture of October 26 and 27, 1912, “Investigations into Life between Death and Rebirth,” in Steiner, Life between Death and Rebirth, 3–30. Particularly pertinent to my discussion is part 2 (18–30).
13. See Leadbeater, “How We Are Influenced: By Sound,” in Leadbeater, The Hidden Side of Things, 198.
14. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 176.
15. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 142. In this passage, nature (which here stands for divine creation) and life (i.e., human creation) are presented as models that ought to be imitated and secure the “naturalness” of enharmony. Russolo’s claim that enharmony is “natural” (in several subsequent paragraphs, he even poses enharmony against the “artificiality” of the temperate system) should not confuse us. Russolo was not seeking a blind imitation of nature but only the re-creation of some of its properties, with the aim of controlling them. The paradox, in fact, is that to create life artificially he must begin by employing natural properties (i.e., subjugate natural elements).
16. Pratella, “La musica futurista: Manifesto tecnico,” in I manifesti del futurismo, 46–47.
17. By the turn of the century, several composers had theorized and proposed microtonal systems to expand pitch resources. (Ferruccio Busoni, whose work was well known to the futurists, was among those who explored the possibility of composing music with microtonal pitches.) Russolo, in a 1923 revindication of his work titled “L’enarmonismo” (reprinted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 211), claimed to have been the first not only to have designed and built “musical instruments that are capable of producing a concrete realization of this [. . .] enharmonic theory” but also to have lectured and published a theory of enharmony “understood not only as a fragmented and occasional subdivision of a tone in steps that are smaller than the semitone but as a whole system.”
18. Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 161–62. This chapter had appeared as an article in the November 1, 1913, issue of Lacerba, where it carried the title “Conquista totale dell’enarmonismo mediante gli intonarumori futuristi.”
19. In Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 158–59. Inexplicably, Barclay Brown omitted the last few words of this excerpt in his translation. Russolo’s insistence on the “artificiality” of the division of an octave into semitones operated by the temperate system (he refers to this twice in the same section) suggests that the term artificial had a negative meaning for him. This implies another critical take against materialism; the term artificiale, could have been taken directly from Bergson’s argument against the “artificial” division of matter and in favor of continuity, which Boccioni cited in Lacerba (March 15, 1913).
20. Quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 160.
21. On sirens, studied by Helmholtz and used by Varèse in his compositions, and on glissandi in modern music and The Art of Noises, see Douglas Kahn, Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999), 72–100; henceforth Kahn, Noise, Water, Meat.
22. Henderson, “Ether and Electromagnetism: Capturing the Invisible,” in From Energy to Information, 97. The theremin, an instrument that produces only glissandi, was also called aetherophone (Winternitz, Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 193).
23. Boccioni, “Fondamento,” Lacerba (March 15, 1913). A few months later, Carrà invoked “the continuity and simultaneity of the plastic transcendences of the mineral world, vegetal world, animal world, and mechanical world”; Carrà, “La pittura dei suoni, rumori e odori,” in I manifesti del futurismo, 156.
24. On the term artificial, which Bergson employed negatively to describe the division of matter, and on how Russolo used the term in his L’arte dei rumori to designate negatively the arbitrariness of division (in this case of the semitone), see note 19. Opposing enharmonic continuity (natural and spiritual) against chromatic fragmentation and subdivision (materialistic and artificial), Russolo
applied Boccioni’s theory of the continuity of the individual form (likewise spiritual and natural) rather than Balla’s and Bragaglia’s fragmented, frame-based representation (which he, like Boccioni, considered materialistic and artificial). In this instance, too, Russolo embraced Boccioni’s subjective synthesis leading to unity rather than Balla’s objective analysis tending to multiplicity.
25. Soffici, “Raggio,” Lacerba (July 1, 1914).
26. For the reprint, see the Roman periodical Ultra.
27. On these quotations from Aristotle, see Winternitz, Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 216. Presumably, Russolo was familiar with Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Logic. Buzzi mentioned Aristotle among Russolo’s late influences; see Buzzi’s introductory note in Zanovello, Luigi Russolo, 13.
28. Winternitz, in Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 221–22, quotes another section taken from Leonardo’s notes included in Arundel 263, a codex now owned by the British Library. In this passage, Leonardo claims that time, as the line in geometry, is a continuous quantity precisely because the interval between two instants in time is infinitely divisible.
29. From Trattato della pittura 31 C, as quoted in Winternitz, Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 215.
30. Winternitz, Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 216.
31. Winternitz, who does employ the categories of “art in space versus art in time” when he paraphrases a passage of Trattato 23 (Winternitz, Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 208), surprisingly fails to consider music as continuous in pitch space.
32. From Trattato 21, as quoted in Winternitz, Leonardo da Vinci as a Musician, 205. Winternitz (205, 208, 211) is confused by Leonardo’s notion of armonico concento. Yet this notion is far less ambiguous if applied to intervals regardless of their direction (i.e., ignoring the distinction between harmonic and melodic intervals). Admittedly, Leonardo’s Trattato della pittura was published after the artist’s death, and Leonardo never produced a systematic revision of the work for publication. The text he left behind is full of contradictions, and it is often difficult, if not downright impossible, to follow Leonardo’s thinking. For the purposes of the present discussion, it is important to point out that, just as Leonardo considered painting to be continuous because of the shades of colors (Leonardo called this ombre e lumi), so Russolo considered music to be continuous in timbre, and he believed that this manifestation of continuity erases the traditional distinction between sound and noise (something that will become a key concept in Russolo’s art of noises). Interestingly, Russolo utilizes the example of shades of colors, but he does not compare color shades with sound colors (timbre) but only with enharmony (see Russolo as quoted in Maffina, Luigi Russolo e l’arte dei rumori, 164). (Harry Partch used the color-sound metaphor in the opening pages of his Genesis of a Music to advocate for microtonality,). The discussion of musical continuity also relates to a discussion of “sliding” in modern compositions, including discussions about sliding in pitch, tempo, and dynamics as addressed in Nancy Yunhwa Rao, “Cowell’s Sliding Tone and the American Ultramodernist Tradition,” American Music (Fall 2005): 281–323.
Luigi Russolo, Futurist Page 33