Music Feature - The Art of Noises

One hundred years after the founding manifesto of Futurism, Robert Worby examine the least-documented aspect of Italy's most audacious art movement: the Art of Noises. The most influential futurist musician was Luigi Russolo who argued for a complete reappraisal of classical orchestras to include sounds of the modern world. He designed and built early mechanical synthesisers, or intonarumori, to recreate the sounds of factories, cars and whistles. Robert travels to Milan, the birthplace of Futurism, to visit reconstructions of the intonarumori - a collection of instruments invented by Russolo - and re-imagine the sounds of the trams and the mighty railway station which inspired them. With all but a few shards of Russolo's music lost or destroyed, why do the Art of Noises continue to resonate for many musicians and artists today?