Luigi Russolo (1885–1947)

Russolo's manifesto represents an important turning point in the history of music. Even before John Cage's embracing of noise (after all, Cage was a new-born babe when this manifesto was written), there was Russolo. How many noise-music enthusiasts of today are familiar w/ Italian Futurism? Some, but probably not the majority? Russolo:

"We must replace the limited variety of timbres of orchestral instruments by the infinite variety of timbres of noises obtained through special mechanisms.

"The musician's sensibility, once he is rid of facile, traditional rhythms, will find in the domain of noises the means of development and renewal, an easy task, since each noise offers us the union of the most diverse rhythms as well as its dominant one."

Alas, what little I've been able to hear of the concerts that such theory generated wasn't necessarily that exciting in contrast to what's developed since, but, HEY!, it's the thought that countdowns.… (mais)