Futurism

Futurism was a movement that began in literature, and continued in visual arts and music in Italy at turn of century.  After their political unification in mid 19th century, Italians had been waiting for social and cultural rejuvenation.  A poet named Marinetti wrote The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909).  The manifesto explains certain ingredients of futurism: reverence for the dynamism of urban life; glorification of speed and velocity; interest in noises of the machine age

          Music Directly Inspired by Futurism: Italian painter Luigi Russolo wrote manifesto The Art of Noises and invented noise machines or intoners; these were the instruments of the futurist orchestra.  Noises fit into categories:

1.       rumbles, roars, explosions, crashes

2.       whistles, snorts

3.       whispers, murmurs

4.       screeches, creaks, buzzes

5.       percussive sounds (metal, wood, skin, stone)

6.       voices of animals and people

          Unfortunately the machines were all destroyed in WWII

          Other composers interested in the machines, e.g. Stravinsky was present at a concert of the futurist orchestra in Milan in 1914; later many composers denied this interest for political reasons: certain Futurists were close to Mussolini; Futurism suffered guilt by association

          Stravinsky was fascinated with one application of machines: the player piano (brand name Pianola); he made transcriptions of many works (Pulcinella, Petrushka, Les Noces)

          Music Indirectly Inspired by Futurism: There was some music that used sounds generated by machines, and other music that imitated sounds of machines

          Actual machines: one example is George Antheils Ballet Mechanique (1925): uses airplane propeller, siren

          Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) Pacific 231 (1924): a study in rhythm: portrays a train accelerating and slowing down. Title comes from type of locomotive

          Futurism was also popular in Russia, e.g. Shostakovichs opera The Nose, about police suppression; has percussion ensemble interlude, then series of noises from Category 6

          A more subtle approach to machine sounds was to make them more abstract but still suggestive of machinery.  Prokofiev did this in Fifth Symphony (mvt. 2), which begins with machine-like perpetual motion

          More repercussions: led composers to search for new sound sources. 

          Familiar instruments used in unfamiliar ways: Henry Cowell (1897-1965) experimented with piano.  Early experiments were to get clusters by placing forearm on piano; by the 20s he had developed set of extended techniques: producing harmonics, plucking and scraping strings.  Two works which demonstrate: The Aeolean Harp (1923) and The Banshee. 

          Edgar Varse (1883-1965): very active with innovative ideas about music: had worked with Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin: Busoni had very progressive ideas

          Varse worked to promote the newest ideas in music, e.g. founded an orchestra in NYC devoted to contemporary music, in 1921 founded International Composers Guild, whose purpose was to present music (of living composers) that hadnt been performed before

          Varse hoped to develop new sound resources based on technology; this wasnt achieved until the 1950s with electronic works.  Varses earlier works achieved new sounds with more traditional instruments: orchestras and esp. percussion

          Musical style:

          Melodies limited to 2 or 3 note cells; harmonies very dissonant; harmonies were used repeatedly

          Used varieties of timbres; e.g. one piece for solo flute; up to large orchestras with unusual wind and percussion instruments from around the world

          He thought of music as shapes which became solid building blocks which piled up in great, spatial juxtapositions

          His use of pitch is unusual compared to other composers. 

          first, he downplayed the importance of melody; rhythm and accent were more important determinants to form than melody

          expanded concept of pitch: instead of discrete steps, he thought of pitch as being on a continuum, with no steps between.  An example is Ionisation (1931), which uses sirens: pitch with infinite gradations.  Scored for 13 musicians to play 37 instruments, mostly percussion

          Integrales is another early work for winds and percussion, demonstrates some other principles:

          melody of limited pitch content

          dense harmonies in building blocks, defined by rhythm and accent more than pitch content