A glimpse of Futurism in music
Il Futurism was not a theory, but the escape route that a writer and political invented to escape the meshes of antique doctrines that weighed on the anxieties of agrimant矛 of the early twentieth century. But it was the only Italian filiation in the kindergarten of the European avant-gardes that made the boot, at least for a moment, European and joyous.
As everyone knows, the great leader of Futurism was Filippo Tommaso. Marinetti, a writer considered somewhat modest in general, but a lieutenant of troops not easily equaled. He launched Futurism with an article in Paris in 1909 for Le Figaro . At home in the French capital, it was natural for him, since he lived in the French capital for a while and wrote in the language of the nation, but it was also perhaps an involuntary opportune choice, because at the beginning of the 20th century Paris was still the European capital of culture, but a true capital, nominated by success, not one of those current antics that are like the Nobel Prize for literature.
Futurism had an unlucky birth, because Marinetti was born "of his own", whose virtues, talking about it, would hurried the few traits. But it remains the only Italian seed in the nursery of the avant-gardes.
In conjunction with a commercial event of no cultural value, ie Artefiera , in Bologna, four days in the middle of winter, in the quagmire of the heart of the Po Valley, the Cinquantasei Gallery had scheduled a concert on Futurism in Music that, due to an illness Season one of the two Mazzoli, father and daughter who had to make it happen, then went to finish at the end of February, when Artefiera's candles were long since turned off and the event forgotten between joy and discouragement, depending on.
The two Mazzoli, Carlo, the pianist father and Paola, the singer daughter, would not seem to be deeply motivated by the cultural theme, if not by the professional occasion. Probably they have good reasons why the best celebration of Futurist music does not go from what has been fielded by those who can be qualified as futuristic Italian musicians, but choosing, according to the cultural intervention that one wants to do, between Russian musicians, some French and ultimately John Cage.
The effect of the ideal and musical production of the futuristic Italians is felt overseas with Varese. Here, beyond the theater fights look and caused between bourgeois filograziosi and modernists antigrazioni (adjectives makes explicit reference to a Casella music, Deux contrastes Op. 31, in the duo's concert program Mazzoli), beyond those fights shortly it remained in our culture about what the Futurists meant.
Someone has seen in jazz a spontaneous manifestation of Futurist creativity, something similar is read in 21 + 26 , Alfredo Casella's collection of his writings until 1930, that is, up to forty-seven, twenty-one for maturity, and 芦26 long years of experiences ", as the musician explains, giving meaning to the title (published in 2001 by Leo Olschki, for the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice). If Futurism was a fast and noisy buriana, jazz instead, as a whole, was not, even if an unnecessary spectacle has occasionally characterized it. But while the pompos have the traits and gestures of color that are never alive, in futurists as in jazz, the bass, the everyday life coexists with the high, the eternal. In the Bolognese concertino there was a Campari advertising flash, written by Casavola, a twenty second slogan, but the Campari Soda bottle is still the one that was designed by Dapero, who made a lot of graphic production for the company.
In the vein of oxymoronic lightness, Marinetti with Viviani wrote Florence biondazzurra would marry futurist morigerato , republished a few years ago by Sellerio, fresh, light, funny book, posthumously to all the battles he was touristically sought (but the morerated futurist is nonsense).
Marinetti wanted an array in his favor. Published the Manifesto , he got busy because artists outside the field of literature produced posters that adhered to the ideas already expressed by him in the fundamental text. But he, the author of that bible, wanted and imposed a maximalist fidelity that with the best good will could hardly find the right expression.
When the manifesto of futurist musicians, signed by Pratella, Francesco Balilla, came out in 1910, the author saw that the text he had prepared had been radically changed.
I think he did well not to react: he did not give a damn about the questions of futurism. Simply Marinetti was wrong to turn to him, the apostle he was looking for would have been if ever Luigi Russolo, a painter of good quality, forward in Italy for the time, which in his mind would have made a future boom with the art of noise .
Naturally there was nothing in the Bolognese concert of Russolo, of which we do not find there are music for singing and piano, but the theory of the intonarumori . Di Pratella there were the music that opened the program, two dances from the triptych La guerra , "La Battaglia" and "la Vittoria", and a sentimental song that closed it, La strada bianca , tell us from "Le songs of nothing ", of 1919.
Again we are involved in a failure of Marinetti, who I suppose thought that ideas were able to qualify things. Of the good Pratella, if there is something that has left even though modest trace in the music, it is de L'aviatore Dro , a work that was produced in 1996 in Lugo under the direction of Gavazzeni and Bussotti's commitment to the production , that of futuristic only has the noise of an airplane engine that enters a couple of times in the musical context, but it is music induced by the scene. For the rest, if we look for some noble father, an authoritative source of inspiration in composing, I think we should point to Debussy, that his "liquid" music that could not be something abominable to the taste of a perfect futurist.
Pratella, as mentioned, without making a scene, then complained about Marinetti's tampering with the poster he had asked for. It had been rewritten in its entirety, then 'violated' by Marinetti, that is, to be a little softer, 'revised and corrected' by the bombastic father of the words in freedom. After all, for this aspect, he, Marinetti, continued romanticism, which in some way is also in the world of the aviator Dro.
This work is so "debuss" this work that Pratella traces its French model to the shameless courage that has in writing a booklet "in prose", which concurred, I think, the quiet failure of the finished product. But the feeling is that futuristic ideas interested him very little or nothing. At the end of this musician we can say that he was so little futurist to put himself polesologically at the antipodes, dealing with traditional songs, that is, of the most passatist musicology, that is, traditional or ethnic. Yet it continues to be remembered as such.
Personally, I think that if the seed of futurism had been developed in the music world, its actors would have landed in the waters of pop music: it was the only thinkable futurism, as shown by Franco Casavola, song, and / or Cangiullo, show and night.
For the concert we are writing about, probably in order to give a certain musical satisfaction to the performers and to the public, given that the wide art gallery offered a rich review of Giacomo Balla's work, also first inside, then outside the Futurism, a program had been set up, Futurism in music , which however said something more in the subtitle, La musica in Italia at the time of Giacomo Balla . After the Box of Deux contrastes Op. 31, already mentioned, in two movements: the graceful (homage to Chopin) and the antigrazioso , the fall in the sentimental molasses of gracefulness was overbearing and sought with the insertion of Ideal(1882) by Francesco Tosti. It is a song that has a strange resistance, I think it was sung by Gianni Morandi, about thirty years ago, bringing it back to ephemeral success. However, the Mazzoli duo had something to exhibit vocality and pianism, which is enough reason to make a concert. With the free talks of the Futurist March of Pratella, with which the evening had opened, no allure could be obtained, but a cultural appreciation for an exemplification of theories that I think are well known, but maybe I'm wrong.
On the road to the beautiful music, after Tosti, was presented Ottorino Respighi, with Nebbie of 1906, text by Ada Negri. Decadentism is quietly welcomed in the vein of cemetery thrill, of which not so much futurism, which was also intelligent, nourished itself, as did fascism, with the daring skeletons. The white road , finally, by Balilla Pratella, (1919), clearly stated where the musician would end up. I think it was Italo Calvino who said that it is not bad to have roots, but that it is better to have them. I would say that if you do not do it yourself, the roots are really a chain.
