Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Futurist Music of Leo Ornstein

1975; Music Library Association; Volume: 31; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/896806

1534-150X

Vivian Perlis,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

In 1909 the Italian Futurists, led by poet Filippo Marinetti, banded together with professed radicals in the other arts to proclaim the era of speed and noise. movement, with headquarters in Milan, spread through Italy and France. A manifesto of the Mouvement Futuriste (Paris, 1913) lists the following: poesie, Marinetti; peinture, Georgio Severini, Giocamo Balla; musique, Balilla Pratella; sculpture, Umberto Boccioni; action feminine, la poetesse Valentine de Saint-Point; art des bruits, Luigi Russolo. This last, organized by Russolo, painter, presented concert in Milan in 1913 under the motto, The Glorification of Noise. It featured a orchestra of groaners, two exploders, one thunderer, three whistlers, two rustlers, two gurglers, one shatterer, one scraper, and one snorter. A credo was announced: To present the musical soul of the great factories, of the railways, of the transatlantic liners, of the battleships, of the automobiles and airplanes. Pratella was the only composer directly involved with the futurists (he contributed only one composition to the movement), but several composers were attracted to the noise principle. Among them were: Edgard Varese (Ame'riques, Hyperprism, Ionisation); George Antheil (Ballet MIecanique, Airplane Sonata); and Leo Ornstein (Suicide in an Airplane, Danse Sauvage, Poems of 1917). In 191 1 Ornstein, age nineteen, was in the front rank of concert pianists before the public. When, in 1913, he began to include this kind of music in his programs, he was labelled futurist by both his friends and enemies. He was called radical, ultramodern, demoniacal, and audiences were appalled but spellbound by his performances. Ornstein became the center of raging musical argument, here and abroad. How did this young Russian Jew from the lower East side of New York become an international scandal for over decade?