On 7 November 1922, the Soviet composer Arseny Avraamov staged one of the most unusual musical events of the twentieth century: the Symphony of Sirens, performed not by an orchestra but by an entire industrial city. The work took place in the port of Baku to mark the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution. From a specially constructed tower overlooking the harbor, Avraamov conducted the city itself, signaling performers with colored flags and field telephones while coordinating a vast network of mechanical and human sound sources.
The performance mobilized nearly every noise-producing element of the industrial port. Factory sirens, ship horns, locomotive whistles, artillery batteries, machine-gun units, hydroplanes, and the foghorns of the entire Caspian flotilla were integrated into a coordinated sonic spectacle. Military bands and mass choirs were also included, performing revolutionary songs such as The Internationale, La Marseillaise, and Warszawianka. Cannon shots served as timing signals, triggering different sections of the composition across the city’s factories, docks, railways, and harbor.
A central element of the piece was a device invented for the event called the Magistral, an instrument consisting of around fifty steam whistles mounted on pipes and controlled by multiple performers like the keys of a keyboard. Additional ensembles operated locomotive whistles and mechanical horns positioned across the port, turning Baku’s industrial infrastructure into a distributed orchestra.
The symphony culminated in a massive collective chord produced by steam whistles, sirens, bells, and artillery fire, echoing across the city and far beyond its harbor. Although Avraamov attempted a second performance in Moscow in 1923, the Baku event remained the most ambitious realization of the concept: a work in which urban machinery, military hardware, and crowds were fused into a single coordinated musical performance.
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