“In a speech which was listened to with sufficient attention, Marinetti, the poet, announced that this was to be the first public trial of a new device invented by Luigi Russelo, a Futurist painter. This instrument is called the ‘noise-maker’ and its purpose is to render a new kind of music. Modern life vibrates with all sorts of noises; music therefore must render this sensation. This, in brief, is the idea. In order to develop it Russelo had invented several types of noise-makers, each of which renders a different sound. “After Marinetti’s speech the curtain went up and the new orchestra appeared in all its glory amidst the bellowings of the public. The famous ‘noise-intonators’ proved to be made out of a sort of bass-drum with an immense trumpet attached to it, the latter looking very much like a gramaphone horn. Behind the instrument sat the players, whose only function was to turn the crank rhythmically in order to create the harmonic noise. They looked, while performing this agreeable task, like a squad of knife-grinders. But it was impossible to hear the music. The public was unconditionally intolerant. We only caught here and there a faint buzz and growl. Then everything was drowned in the billowing seas of howls, jeers, hisses, and cat-calls. What they were hissing at, it being impossible to hear the music, was not quite clear. They hissed just for the fun of it. It was a case of art for art’s sake. Painter Russelo, however, continued undisturbed to direct his mighty battery of musical howitzers and his professors kept on grinding their pieces with a beautiful serenity of mind, all the while the tumult increasing to redoubtable proportions. The consequence was that those who went to the Dal Verme for the purpose of listening to Futurist music had to give up all hopes and resign themselves to hear the bedlam of the public. “In vain did Marinetti attempt to speak, begging them to be quiet for a while and assuring them that they would be allowed a whole carnival of howls at the end of the concert--the public wanted to hiss and there was no way to check it. But Russelo kept right on. He conducted with imperturbable solemnity the three pieces we were supposed to hear: _The Awakening of a Great City_, _A Dinner on a Kursaal Terrace_, and _A Meet of Automobiles and Aeroplanes_. Nobody heard anything, but Russelo rendered everything conscientiously. The only thing we were able to find out about Futurist music is that the noise of the orchestra is by no means too loud, or at least not louder than impromptu choruses.