Intonarumori: Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners

A Performa Commission
Conducted by Luciano Chessa

“Today, noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men,” Russolo wrote in “The Art of Noises,” a Futurist manifesto of 1913. Luigi Russolo (1885–1947)—painter, composer, builder of musical instruments, and a member of the Italian futurist movement from its inception, represents a crucial moment in the evolution of twentieth-century musical aesthetics. His Intonarumori (“noise intoners”) were a set of wooden sound boxes each with cone-shaped metal speaker on its front, where sound was generated by turning a crank, while tone and pitch were controlled with a lever—the sound of the nascent machine age brought to life. The instruments were first presented on August 11, 1913, in a press concert at Milan’s Casa Rossa, headquarters of the Futurist Movement. Lost by the early 1940s, the first reproduction of Russolo’s earliest Intonarumori orchestra—a set of 16 noise intoners—was completed in 2009 by composer/musicologist Luciano Chessa.  Chessa, whose monograph “Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts and the Occult” is the first to be dedicated to Russolo and his art of noises, toured with the Intonarumori through all the major European festivals, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York City’s Town Hall, and Art Basel Miami Beach.

The Intonarumori will be on display in the Atrium during regular museum hours January 13–15, and the week culminates in a full concert Friday, January 16 at 7:30 p.m., in Gartner Auditorium.

Concert tickets $45–$33; CMA members $40–$30

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