"All innovators, logically speaking, have been Futurists in relation to their time. Palestrina would have thought that Bach was crazy, and Bach would have thought Beethoven the same, and Beethoven would have thought Wagner equally so."

Francesco Balilla Pratella Music See all quotes by Francesco Balilla Pratella →

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“Manifesto of Futurist Musicians”

“I address myself to the young. They alone will have to listen to me, they alone will be able to understand me. Some people are born already old, drooling specters from the past, cryptograms tumid with poisons: to them, no words or ideas except a single injunction: the end.”

“Knowledge of instrumentation should be acquired through experience. Instrumental composition should be conceived instrumentally, imagining and hearing a particular orchestra for each particular and diverse musical condition of the mind.”

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