George Antheil - Ballet Mecanique and Later Work in Europe

Ballet Mecanique and Later Work in Europe

Antheil's best-known composition is Ballet Mécanique. The "ballet" was originally conceived to be accompanied by a film by experimental filmmakers Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy (with cinematography by Man Ray), although the nature of the collaboration is mysterious. The first productions of Antheil's work in 1925 and 1926 did not include the film, which turned out to last around 17 minutes, only half as long as the Antheil's score.

Antheil described his "first major work" as "scored for countless numbers of player pianos. All percussive. Like machines. All efficiency. No LOVE. Written without sympathy. Written cold as an army operates. Revolutionary as nothing has been revolutionary." Antheil's original conception was scored for 16 specially synchronized player pianos, two grand pianos, electronic bells, xylophones, bass drums, a siren and three airplane propellers, but difficulties with the synchronization resulted in a rewrite for a single pianola and multiple human pianists. The piece consisted of periods of music and interludes of silence set against the roar of the airplane propellers. Antheil described as "by far my most radical work... It is the rhythm of machinery, presented as beautifully as an artist knows how." The Léger-Murphy film and Antheil's score were finally performed together at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1935.

Antheil assiduously promoted the work, and even engineered his supposed "disappearance" while on a visit to Africa so as to get media attention for a preview concert. The official Paris première in June 1926 was sponsored by an American patroness who at the end of the concert was tossed in a blanket by three baronesses and a duke. The work enraged some of the concert-goers, whose objections were drowned out by the cacophonous music, while others vocally supported the work, and the concert ended with a riot in the streets.

On April 10, 1927, Antheil rented New York's Carnegie Hall in order to present an entire concert devoted to his works including the American debut of Ballet Mécanique in a scaled-down version. He commissioned elaborate backdrops of skyscrapers and machines, and engaged an African American orchestra to premiere his A Jazz Symphony. The concert started well, but according to the concert's promoter and producer when the wind machine was turned on "all hell, in a minor way, broke loose." During the gale, audience members clutched their programs and their hats, one "tied a handkerchief to his cane and waved it wildly in the air in a sign of surrender." Much to the amusement of the audience, the untested siren failed to sound on cue, despite frantic cranking and reached its climax only after the end of the performance, as the audience were clapping and leaving the hall. American critics were hostile, calling the concert "a bitter disappointment" and dismissing the Ballet Mécanique as "boring, artless, and naive" and Antheil's hoped-for riots failed to materialize. The failure of the Ballet Mécanique affected him deeply, and he never fully recovered his reputation during his lifetime, though his interest in the mechanical was emulated by other prominent composers such as Arthur Honegger, Sergei Prokofiev, and Erik Satie. In 1954, Antheil created a modified version of the work for percussion, four pianos, and a recording of an airplane motor.

In the late 1920s, Antheil moved to Germany, where he worked as assistant musical director of the Stadttheater in Berlin, and wrote music for the ballet and theatre. In 1930, he premiered his first opera Transatlantic. This work, which involved American politics and gangsters, was a success at the Frankfurt Opera. In 1933, the rise of the Nazi party made Antheil's avant-garde music unwelcome in Germany, and at the height of the Depression, he returned to the US and settled in New York City.

He reentered American life with enthusiasm, organizing concerts, working on committees with Aaron Copland and Wallingford Riegger, and writing piano, ballet and film scores as well as an opera Helen Retires about Helen of Troy; the latter proved a flop. His music had moved away from more extreme aspects of modernism, and more tonal, neo-romantic aspects were by now discernible in his work.