MUSIC AND ITS RELATION TO FUTURISM, CUBISM, DADAISM, AND SURREALISM 1905 TO 1950

CUBISM, DADAISM, AND SURREALISM
North Texas State University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
Denton, Texas
January, 1969
Reader, if chance or native courage brings you into the presence of a young artist who has painted a picture of a fragmentary, dark-blue baby on the bridge of a pink bat- tleship, or a composer who has written a symphony dealing with the high cost of living, be warned and refrain from asking the young painter or the young musician what is the purpose of his art. . . .
I paint things, says the young man, as the world will see them fifty years from now. I reproduce sounds, says the young man, as the world will hear them fifty years from now.
But the future writes its music on the basis of the pragmatic philosophy and paints its pictures in accordance with the principles of the New Psychology of the Abnormal as formulated by Professor Marzhasen of Gotha.
Author anonymous The Nation, Vol. XCIV, April 11, 1912, pp. 355-356.
FOREWORD
study has been done concerning music's relation to the "isms"
selected for this discussion. The contemporary interest in
the movements themselves has been so widespread that the docu-
mentation of them, in scattered accounts, is enormous. It is
disappointing that these records provide little or no infor-
mation about the musical aspects of the movements; the graphic
and literary accounts, on the other hand, have been accorded
generous treatments. Since futurism, cubism, and surrealism,
in their origins, were oriented toward the visual and liter-
ary arts, it is not surprising that these two aspects would
receive the greatest amount of attention. The meager
attention to music and the distortion of its role in the
movements, as has largely been the case, has created an
artistic imbalance,
exhaustive search for factors which have, in some way or
other, linked music with these movements. Musical futurism
has been the easiest to identify, although its underlying
theories are not always clear, since the futurists, in ex-
plaining their theories, were not always convincing, perhaps
even to themselves. This writer's main attempt has been to
interpret ideas that were frequently vague and poorly explained
Iii
to begin with. It will become evident to the reader, in
the case of the dadaists, and to some extent the surrealists,
the provocative nature of their activities was deliberately
designed to create incomprehension, incoherency, and con-
fusion.
personal judgments have also been included. This author,
feeling that most of the discussions are highly controversial,
and not necessarily conclusive, occasionally points out the
discrepancies in the arguments. Because many of the state-
ments are subjective opinions, the reader will frequently
need to draw his own conclusions.
Since the "isms" were more active in France, Germany,
and Italy, the original books, documents, and articles were
written in these languages, The majority of these also have
been translated into English as well as other languages. The
Dada Painters and Poets, for example, contains the writings
of more than a dozen of the most prominent dadaists; while
the Dada Monograph includes additional writers. The "Dada
Dictionary," included in this latter work, is useful in many
ways, but not totally reliable. This writer has included a
glossary of terms as a convenient reference for the reader
unfamiliar with the terminology involved. In addition to the
printed sources, a great amount of information was obtained
through personal interviews, concert performances, and letters,
some of which are not cited in the study sources.
The author recognizes the valuable assistance of many
persons such as Virgil Thomson, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Marcel
iv
supplied documents, letters, interviews, recordings, and other
information pertinent to this study. The efforts of Fred J.
Backhaus and William W. Bailey in collaboration with this
author were instrumental in realizing meaningful translations
of materials that were otherwise available only in the German
and French languages.
developed almost concurrently, and, although many sources
place cubism before futurism, futurist records reveal that its
earliest theories were being formulated in Marinetti's Poesia
which was founded between 1903 and 1905.
The discussion of the music itself, beginning with the
third chapter, uses as its guidelines actual aesthetic creeds,
collaboration among musicians, painters, and poets, and anal-
ogies provided by the writers themselves. Although analogy
may appear to represent a superficial kind of treatment in
many instances, and is far from being conclusive, yet it rep-
resents the speculative thinking of many critics and writers.
The qualifications of the latter likewise may be questioned,
but they are entitled nonetheless to their opinions. What-
ever virtues this study has, the intent of this author is to
point out the most significant relations, to expose the most
obvious prejudices that have created considerable misunder-
standing about the composers and their relations to these
V
movements, to establish as nearly as possible a line of
musical continuity if any, and, most $mportant, to provide
an equitable account of the position of music within the
four movements.
Chapter
Futurism Cubism Dadaism Surrealism
II. LEGACY ANDREVOLT .*.* . .@.#.W.0106
Influences on Futurism Influences on Cubism Influences on Dadaism Influences on Surrealism
III. FUTURISMiANDMUSIC * ... .*.*. .. . . .. 10146
IV. CUBISM AND MUSIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Analogy Collaboration: Artist, Poet, Musician
V. DADA ANDIMUSIC . .4. . .... .. o. .0....285
Zurich Musical Activities Dada Musicians Other Musicians and Dada
VI. SURREALISMANDMUSIC 4. .......... 4 7
Andre Breton vs. Music Composers and Surrealism Surrealism and Other Composers Surrealist Texts Ballet and Cinema
vii
VII. MUSIC AND THE "ISMS" TO 1950 . .. . a. . ... 391
Late Futurist Influence on Music Late Dadaist Influence on Music Late Surrealist Influence on 1Music
GLOSSARY OFTERiS .......... 455
Futurism was, by and large, an Italian art movement
appearing and developing approximately at the same time as
cubism. There were no uncertain connotations about the use
of the word, futurism, nor the movement it described; it was
selected by the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and all the
members of the movement accepted it wholeheartedly. Futurism
began to bombard traditional art with manifestos and other
literary propaganda about 1909. It was the only art movement
at this time whose protagonists were apparently fully cog-
nizant of the technological advances of the twentieth century;
they were deeply concerned with the political and social
changes that occurred in the first four decades of the twen-
tieth century and attempted to develop their art ideology on
the basis of these changes. The boisterous, pretentious,
uncompromising, and radical attitudes of futurism were prop-
agated by its founder Marinetti and his colleagues, who
carried their movement to the public in a manner similar to
that of a political campaign, though more often with greater
zest and fanaticism. In order to understand better the nature
of futurism's violent spirit it is necessary to provide a
1
2
brief account of the political and social factors that affected
its origin and development so strongly.
Following the assassination of King Humbert (July 29,
1900) by an anarchist, and contrary to the expectations of
those who had hoped for a radical uprising, Italy's new king,
Victor Emanuel III, established a new monarchy that repre-
sented the beginning of a long period of social and political
pacification, The political involvement of this monarchy was
varied, but it was largely made up of Socialists and Catholics.
This era lasted from 1903 to about 1914,with Giovanni Giolitti
exerting the greatest influence and control over the Italian
people, politicians, and to a great extent, Pope Pius X.
Under Giolitti's leadership Italy was drawn into a system
that could boast of contented industrial classes, a steady
rise in economic living standards for the masses, and. marked
improvement in foreign relations with France and England4
World War I dissolved this Triple Alliance and after the war,
Italy moved rapidly towards a militant nationalism.1
During these years Italian politics became the chief
concern of several literary figures whose writings, usually
political in nature and content, exerted considerable influ-
ence upon the populace. These figures included Benedetto
1Rosa Trillo Clough, Futurism: The Story of a Modern Art Movement. A New A rarsa1.(New York,Pilosophical flabrry,79l),pp. 3-.
Croce, G. Salvemini, Enrico Corradini, Enrico Leone, and
Luigi Federzoni.2 Leone and Georges Dorel, along with Benito
Mussolini, became ardent patriots and promoted nationalism
until the beginning of World War II. Other literary person-
alities such as Ardengo Soffici and Giovanni Papini were
initially opposed to futurist activities, but later became
closely associated with the aims and goals of nationalism
and futurism and even founded a periodical, Lacerba, in the
latter's behalf. This journal assumed a political position
and attempted to promote patriotism, imperialism, and inter-
ventionism, as well as futurism.3
Marinetti's journal, Poesia, founded in 1904 or 1905,
carried one of the earliest manifestations of futurism in
1909.4 In the same year (February 20) another journal,
Figaro, carried a manifesto which attempted to draw attention
to Italy's decadent art by denouncing all of Its traditions.
This proclamation, like many of its successors, was concerned
with the complacent and cultural weakness of the Italian per-
sonality. It attracted such personalities as the hypercritical
individualist, the pacifist, the oversexed youth and his
2lbid., pp. 9-10. Clough mentioned Croce's La Critica, Estetica, Brevarios; SalveminiI's L'Uniti; Corradii'7F- Regno, and Leone's II Divenire Sociale.
3Werner Haftmann, Pating in the Twentieth Centur, Vol. I, translated by Ralph ManheimnNew York, Frederick A. Praeger, Publisher, 1966), p. 106.
4Horace B. Samuel, "The Future of Futurism," Fort- nightly Review, XCIX (April, 1913), 73.
4
exploitation of women, and the brave patriot living in the
past.5 A year later (February 11, 1910) Marinetti, joined by
the futurist painters, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Luigi
Russolo, Giacomo Balla, and Gino Severini, published another
manifesto, patriotic in substance, but nevertheless condemning
Italy's past. Concurrent with their condemnation of their
heritage, the futurists pointed out the pre-eminent role Italy
had played in the development of art, referring to themselves
as primitives entering into a rebirth of nationalism.6
The negative side of futurism could be recognized in
several attitudes concerning morality and the revolt against
tradition. The denial of morality involved women's rights and
the sanctity of the past, while the revolt against tradition
was directed against Italian insistence on idolizing antiq-
uity. The futurists, for example, made temerarious demands
that the Venetian canals be drained and that libraries be
burned. On the positive side, futurists pointed out that
technical and mechanical achievements, such as the motorcar,
airplane, dynamo, and electricity, should be put on an artis-
tic footing. Marinetti, in urging that the motorcar was to
assume the role of Pegasus and hence serve as the symbol of
5Clough, Futurism, pp. 13-15.
Ibi~d., pp. 18-19.
a new kind of spiritual transport, sought to rekindle poetic
imagination in modern terms.7
the past and present were instrumental in shaping the des-
tiny of futurism. At the outset of the movement, Papini, a
poet and philosopher, opposed futurists and futurism, de-
nouncing theit efforts as noisy, clownish, and boisterous;
he declared that their so-called new ideas were outdated,
having actually originated with Verhaeren, Whitman, and
D'4nnunzio. He also insisted that vers libre had been im-
ported from France and that Strindberg and Weininger inspired
the futurists' attacks on women.8 Later, however, Papini
recognized in futurism a healthy opposition to stagnant
traditionalism and attempted to uphold futurist actions,
insisting that they were new and advanced ideas for Italy.
Futurists frequently spoke of Nietzsche and D'Annunzio
as good disciples of their ideals. Marinetti, however, claimed
that there was a difference between the Nietzsche superman
and the futurist superman, pointing out that Nietzsche was
the most obstinate worshipper of ancient beauty, as well as
a product of Hellenic imagination, whereas the futurist
7Joshua C. Taylor, Futurism (Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1961), p. 11.
8 Clough, Futurism, p. 34.
6
superman was "the disciple of the Engine, the enemy of books,
that is, an exponent of personal experience."9
In 1913, the futurists, openly opposing the monarchy as
well as prevailing doctrines of democracy, took an aggressive
stand in politics by campaigning against Italian parliamen-
tary institutions and even opposed the conservative party,
denouncing it "as the bulwark of both the monarchy and the
Vatican." 10 Admitting that parliamentarism once gave the
masses an illusion of participation, futurists claimed that
the working classes had been misled and advocated the general
strike as the only efficient weapon for the working class.11
The opposition to the monarchy was further emphasized at the
close of World War I and was eventually perpetuated by Mus-
solini and early Fascism. The futurists felt that the needs
of the lower classes could be fulfilled by selecting qualified
leaders from all classes and that their superior capacity
should carry with it the exercise of authority.12
Futurists believed in youthful leadership of the govern-
ment as well as the possibility of leadership through painters
and poets. In the futurist platform of October 11, 1913, Marin-
etti pointed out that Italy had been ruled by unscrupulous
lawyers, philosophers, and kings, and proposed a government
9lbid., p. 33. 101Ibid., pp. 29-30.
1]Ibid., pp. 29-30. Marinetti claimed a profound re- spect for the working class.
12lbid., p. 29.
that would be ruled by painters and poets, insisting that
because of their awareness of technical progress they would,
as rulers, be better qualified to comply with the needs and
conditions of a mechanized society.13 He attempted to explain
this in his play, Le Roi Bombance, in which a revolutionary
movement was aimed at placing "the State under the tutelage
of art and in the hands of the Poets."
Literature
super-reality and a sincere mystic idealism. Just how the
futurists achieved a literary manifestation of this aspiration
has been revealed in their attempts to construct a new kind
of free verse that represented a rough figuration of machinism
and a theoretical concept of speed. Clough has provided sev-
eral illustrations showing how futurists attempted to develop
an autonomous literature that presumably would have a life of
its own. The first process employed the use of intuitive
faculties involving intuition, analogy, and irony. The second
process, concerning actual poetics, utilized stylistic devices
that abolished syntax and included metrical reform, onomato-
poeia, type-painting, and synthetic lyricism. The third
process provided the result, the synthetic play and the ve-
hicle through which they could perform and demonstrate, the
theater,
oppose the intellect by attacking syllogistic reasoning.
Marinetti stated that unconscious inspiration and lucid vo-
lition were often resolved in favor of one another, or
occasionally existed side by side, allowing for a free crea-
tive spirit that resulted in incomprehensible spontaneity of
a conception and execution. Intuition enabled the futurist
to discover analogies, and analogies provided the power to
discover identity in diversity-to identify human sensation
with the "living feel of matter."15 Futurists adapted the
aesthetics of analogy to a philosophy of irony. Soffici
described this process as being
* . . the manner of seeing of those who realize the ab- solute futility of what they have labored at, who suddenly discover the disproportion between expectation and realization and save themselves from tragic pes- simism by retreating into the citadel of poetry from whose heights they can look down and laugh at the futile spectacle of mants ambitions. 16
Abolition of syntax, which involved the deletion of
sentence-retarding words, provided a release from grammatical
subserviency and allowed the construction of speedier phrases
with more impact. This was achieved by employing several
conjoined adjectives in succession (for the purpose of dis-
tinction rather than embellishment) as headlights for the
substantives that followed, as well as through the deletion
15lbid., pp. 44-48. p.16Ibid., p. 41.
9
of adverbs or by replacing a conjugation with an infinitive,
each substantive thus having a double (man-bomber, woman-bay).
Along with this, punctuation disappeared and was partially
replaced by mathematical signs or by familiar musical indi-
cations (piti presto, rallentando). In metrical reform, free
verse, at first accepted and used by futurists, was thought
to be inadequate and was replaced by what was termed pArole
in liberty (word autonomy). Besides the metrical avoidances,
futurists, through the process of onomatopoeia, distorted,
deformed, and reshaped words. This was frequently accomplished
through increasing or lessening the number of vowels and
consonants. Onomatopoeia was also used directly and imita-
tively, such as esi to reproduce the whistle of a tugboat,
or other sounds, such as boom to describe the sound of a
cannon.17 Poetic application of synthetic lyricism involved
the elimination of superfluous items of the clause or sen-
tence to introduce the utmost compression. The principle of
type-painting involved the dispersion of letters into every
conceivable arrangement and angle. These were set up in dif-
fering styles of varying colors. Some of the results of
type-painting have often suggested imitative art.18 An ex-
ample of mixed words and letters is Marinettits Parole in
1 7 Ibid., p. 52.
18Ibid.,pp. 48-52. The journal Lacerba included syn- thetic compositions.
10
Liberty, and a similar idea was introduced by Carra through
a collage on cardboard called "Free-Word Painting" (Patriotic
I-v-.I.,ar
luq tkap x x x x x W~
X dyum~~~st a". go OIA n W41I ~ + dilao dIrunkU I&ISSOh
Isrot 6hh W&W ppc.AC AA 'uY~Iim~u bont
Plate 1. Marinetti: Parole in Libert'a19
Celebration, 1914),*20
19Taylor, Futurism, p. 110. Two other examples, Nos. 214, 215 by Giacoma Balla are included in Archivi 'del Futuirismo,
Vol. II, Maria Drudi Gambillo, editor, raccolti e ordinati da
Maria Drudi Gambillo e Teresa Fiori, Roma, de Luca, 1962, p. 115.
2 0 Ibid.
melodrama, and made the traditional theater the subject of
their attacks. The vaudeville theater, informal, dynamic,
and versatile, and having no formal tradition of its own, was
a more adaptable medium for futurist expression. Futurist
theater emphasized the abandonment of traditional art, made
allowances for movement of color and form, and allowed no
distinction between the stage, boxes, or orchestra. Every-
one, including spectators, was allowed to become actors.
This provided futurists with an almost unlimited opportunity
for provocative endeavors. Their plan to integrate the theater
with life often involved the most ludicrous antics: actors
with blue necks and purple arms; performances intentionally
stopped with fistfights; putting glue on chairs; selling tick-
ets in a manner in which prostitutes would sit next to prudes,
teachers next to pupils, enemies next to each other; and the
discrediting of works of great masters such as Beethoven or
Bach by having their compositions played backwards, the inter-
polation of Neapolitan songs, or providing syncopated renditions
of Chopin. An occasion illustrating the hostility of the audi-
ence was a provocative presentation held in the Chiarella
Theater in Turin, March, 1910, at which time the "Manifesto
of Futurist Painters" was read from the theater stage. Their
declarations were met with whistles and shouts as well as
12
barrages of rancid spaghetti and over-ripe fruit. Frequent
fights between the performers and the audience resulted.21
The synthetic play (like synthetic poetry) was described
as a new dramatic genre of the futurists. Based on brevity
and absurdity, it was often created and performed with only
a few sentences or expressions. "No sentiments, no psycho-
logical development, no atmosphere, no suggestiveness. Common
sense was banished, or rather, replaced by nonsense. Stupidity,
as such, was heralded as humor."22
Paint , 3Sculpture, and Architecture
with the advanced tendencies in poetry. Marinetti pondered
over three words ("Electricism," "Dynamism," and "Futurism")
as choices for the title of the new movement. Even though the
first two were rejected, dynamism became the central theme
through which all their arts evolved, especially painting.23
Dynamism itself was influenced by…