Luigi Russolo, Futurist - Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-520-27063-3
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 232 mm, Gewicht: 534 g

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947)—painter, composer, builder of musical instruments, and first-hour member of the Italian Futurist movement—was a crucial figure in the evolution of twentieth-century aesthetics. As creator of the first systematic poetics of noise and inventor of what has been considered the first mechanical sound synthesizer, Russolo looms large in the development of twentieth-century music. In the first English language study of Russolo, Luciano Chessa emphasizes the futurist’s interest in the occult, showing it to be a leitmotif for his life and a foundation for his art of noises. Chessa shows that Russolo’s aesthetics of noise, and the machines he called the intonarumori, were intended to boost practitioners into higher states of spiritual consciousness. His analysis reveals a multifaceted man in whom the drive to keep up with the latest scientific trends coexisted with an embrace of the irrational, and a critique of materialism and positivism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chessa, Luciano

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Klassische Musik des 20./21. Jahrhunderts
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Einzelne Künstler: Biographien, Monografien
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen: Religiöse Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Einzelne Komponisten und Musiker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One. Luigi Russolo from the Formative Years to 1913
1. Futurism as a Metaphysical Science

2. Occult Futurism

3. Spotlight on Russolo

4. Painting Noise: La musica

5. Russolo and Synesthesia

6. Russolo’s Metaphysics

Part Two. The Art of Noises and the Occult
7. Intonarumori Unveiled

8. The Spirali di Rumori

9. The Arte dei “Romori”

10. Controversial Leonardo

11. Third Level

Conclusion: Materialist Futurism?

Notes

Über Autor(innen)

Luciano Chessa, a composer and musicologist, teaches music history at the San Francisco Conservatory.