Music

More than thirty futurist artists participated in the creation of the anthology “Canzoniere futurista, amoroso, guerriero” from 1943. An “Aeropittura” by Osvaldo Peruzzi forms the background of the book title, which appears to be hand-written. It includes songs, musical compositions, a dynamic caricature of Marinetti by Prampolini and a particularly beautiful panel with “Parole in Libertà” by Cangiullo. In contrast, the impressive two-tone cover picture for Francesco Balilla Pratella’s “Musica futurista per orchestra. Op. 30” (1912) was designed by Boccioni. The author dedicated the copy shown here to his colleague Arnaldo Bonaventura as a “futuristic homage”; the concert was performed in 1913 in the Costanzi Theatre in Rome. In addition to the “Manifesto dei musicisti futuristi” (1910), Pratella also composed the “Manifesto tecnico della musica futurista” (1911) and “La distruzione della quadratura” (1912). In these works, the fusion of harmony and counterpoint to form a polyphony and the transfer of free rhythm from literature to music was particularly propagated. In contrast, the autodidact Silvio Mix dabbled in the translation of futurist pictures into music and wrote compositions for the futurist theatre. The cover of his composition, “Profilo sintetico-musicale di Marinetti per pianoforte”, which was written in 1924 in Marinetti’s honour, decorates the portrait of Marinetti by Rougena Zatkova.