The Classical Music Book

268

SCIENCE ALONE CAN

INFUSE MUSIC WITH

YOUTHFUL VIGOR

IONISATION (1929–1931), EDGARD VARÈSE

T

he machine age of the

early 20th century was an

exciting time for avant-

garde artists and thinkers. Their

“Futurist” manifestos—most

famously, Italian painter and

composer Luigi Russolo’s Art of

Noises (1913)—advocated making

music out of noises that ranged

from human shouts and screams

to explosions and the sounds of

machines in order to give music

a new dynamism. Although early

Futurist events often ended up as

riots and there is little record of the

music actually produced, their

ideas influenced composers such

as Honegger, Prokofiev, and Antheil

who variously composed music

depicting machine-made sounds.

The new piano

Although the 20th century was full

of experiments aiming to turn noise

into music, the most successful

early attempts came as composers

such as Prokofiev and Stravinsky

started to treat the piano as a

percussive instrument rather than

a melodic one. The American

composer Henry Cowell was

the first to understand the true

possibilities of unleashing the

“noise” of the piano. In 1917, his

Tides of Manaunaun included tone

clusters to be played with the

forearm, and he went one stage

further in Aeolian Harp (1923),

where the performer is required to

pluck and sweep the strings inside

the piano rather than use the keys.

City noise

Edgard Varèse was the first

composer to create a complete work

scored for a percussion ensemble,

in Ionisation (1931). He had studied

at the Paris Conservatoire under

the conservative Charles-Marie

Widor, but after moving to New

York in 1915, he became fascinated

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The emancipation of noise

BEFORE

1909 Marinetti publishes the

Futurist Manifesto, celebrating

a new era of speed, machinery,

and violence.

1923 Arthur Honegger’s

Pacific 231 imitates the sounds

made by steam trains.

1926 American composer

George Antheil’s Ballet

mécanique premieres in

Paris, containing airplane

propellors and a siren.

1928 Léon Theremin patents

the first electronic musical

instrument, the Theremin.

AFTER

1952 Étude, a work created

from a single sound and its

manipulation on audio tape.

Our musical alphabet must be

enriched. ... Musicians should

take up this question in deep

earnest with the help of

machinery specialists.

Edgard Varèse

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