---
id: avraamov_sirens
title: "Symphony of Sirens"
year: 1922
category: "Ideas"
lang: en
canonical: https://nodemusic.cc/node/avraamov_sirens
source: node.music
---

# Symphony of Sirens (1922)

Ideas · https://nodemusic.cc/node/avraamov_sirens

## Summary

Arseny Avraamov turned the entire city of Baku into an instrument. Factory sirens, Caspian flotilla artillery, machine guns, and hydroplanes, conducted from a tower via semaphore flags. The largest noise performance in history.

## Full text

In 1922, Arseny Avraamov realized the wildest dream of the early avant-garde: the city-orchestra. The performers were not musicians, but the infrastructure of Baku itself: factory chimneys, foghorns of the Caspian flotilla, artillery batteries, and even hydroplanes. The central instrument was the "Magistral" — a tuned steam organ made of ~50 locomotive whistles that played the melody of "The Internationale" while machine gun crews tapped out the rhythm.

Controlling this chaos required military logistics. Avraamov conducted from a tower (the "captain's bridge") using a system of semaphore flags and signal flares, while commands to distant districts were relayed via a field telephone network. This was the manifesto of "Revarsavr" (Revolutionary Arseny Avraamov), who called for burning pianos in favor of a new, "ultrachromatic" music of the industrial world, the physical power of which was overwhelming.

## People

- Arseny Avraamov (1886–1944) — The chief radical of the early USSR, a theorist and rebel who declared war on equal temperament (and J.S.

## Connections

### Influenced by

- [Art of Noises](https://nodemusic.cc/node/russolo.md) - INSPIRED

### Influenced

- [Musique Concrète](https://nodemusic.cc/node/schaeffer.md) - ENABLED
- [ANS Synthesizer](https://nodemusic.cc/node/ans.md) - TECHNIQUE