George Antheil

George Antheil (July 8, 1900, Trenton, New Jersey – February 12, 1959, New York City) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor.

Early life

Antheil was baptized Georg Carl Johann Antheil and grew up in a family of Lutheran immigrants from Ludwigswinkel, Germany. He spent most of his time living in a more peaceful environment north of Trenton, New Jersey near Washington’s Crossing. Antheil was not Polish, as he claimed. [Birth records and family records, Trenton Historical Society http://www.trentonhistory.org/His/Recreation.htm ] His father owned a local shoe store. [Jon Blackwell article in The Trentonian http://www.capitalcentury.com/1927.html ] George's younger brother was Henry W. Antheil, Jr., diplomatic courier tragically killed over the Baltic Sea by the Soviets on June 14, 1940. Henry was recently recognized for his honorable service by the United States Department of State.

Antheil was "so crazy about music", said author Hugh Ford, that his mother sent him to the countryside where no pianos were available. George arranged for Barlow's Music Store in Trenton to deliver a piano to him. [ [http://www.paristransatlantic.com/antheil/mainpage/childhood.html George Antheil's Childhood in Trenton] ]

Starting in 1916, Antheil studied piano under Constantine von Sternberg of Philadelphia and then Ernest Bloch of New York. Here, Antheil received formal instruction in composition. In 1922, Antheil was invited by agent Martin H. Hanson to replace the injured Leo Ornstein, playing Chopin on a European tour.

Reactions to his first performances were cool at best; His technique was loud, brazen, and percussive. Critics wrote that he hit the piano rather than played it, and indeed he often injured himself by doing so. Audiences in Budapest got so restless sometimes that Antheil would pull a pistol from his jacket and lay it on the piano to make people pay attention. [Ibid ]

uccess

Around this time, von Sternberg introduced the young Antheil to his patron of the next two decades: Mary Louise Curtis Bok, founder of the Curtis Institute of Music. [Article at OperaWorld.com http://www.operaworld.com/north/transatlantic/antheil.shtml ] As critical as she was to his livelihood however, Antheil never acknowledges her in his autobiography. He briefly alludes to her, saying how unfortunate it was that a musician’s art should be interrupted by a constant need to ask for financial support. [Review of autobiography by Linda Whitesitt, available on JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/view/07344392/sp020005/02x0114j/ ]

By 1923, Antheil had married Böski Markus and moved to Paris. There, he found many influential friends, including his idol Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway, among others. These young artists would attend Antheil’s performances and yell support if the crowd was rude. In fact, the director Marcel L'Herbier filmed one incident in Paris, when Man Ray supposedly slapped a protester. The clip was taken for the movie, "L'inhumaine". Friends like Ezra Pound and Natalie Barney helped produce some original works, including the First String Quartet in 1926. [Rodriguez, Suzanne (2002). Wild Heart: A Life: Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-093780-7 ] Pound’s mistress, Olga Rudge, performed Antheil’s violin sonatas.

Music

Antheil’s best-known composition is "Ballet Mécanique" (1924). The “ballet” was about 30 minutes long, originally conceived as the musical accompaniment to the film of the same name by Dudley Murphy and Fernand Léger. Eventually the film makers and composers chose to let their creations evolve separately, although the film credits still included Antheil. Nevertheless, "Ballet Mécanique" premiered as concert music in Paris in 1926. Before the show, it was decided to use leather strips in the airplane propeller to make it more audible; this had never been tried before, and unfortunately, a strip flew into the audience during the show. The onstage propeller also blew off toupees and hats, which caused some scuffles, but many critics produced positive reviews anyway. Some people did not like it at all however, and legend has it that one man opened his umbrella and pretended to be hiding from the sound. Antheil became known as the “bad boy of music.” [ [8] The Trentonian http://www.capitalcentury.com/1927.html and OperaWorld.com http://www.operaworld.com/north/transatlantic/antheil.shtml ]

Antheil took "Ballet Mécanique" to Carnegie Hall in New York the following year. The Americans seemed less enthusiastic: they expressed mild amusement, but they would not accept Antheil as a “serious” composer. Antheil remained in France as a Guggenheim scholar for a few more years, during which time he wrote his opera "Transatlantic", but the Depression brought him back to the US in 1932. He went to Hollywood in 1936 and became an established film composer. [OperaWorld.com http://www.operaworld.com/north/transatlantic/antheil.shtml ]

It is likely that Antheil's most frequently heard composition was the theme he wrote for the 1957-1970 CBS television program "The 20th Century", which was narrated by Walter Cronkite. The theme was heard in many American homes every Sunday night for 13 years at the opening and closing of the program.

Works

Opera

*"The Brothers" (1954)
*"Helen Retires" (1931)
*"Transatlantic" (1930)
*"Venus in Africa" (1954)
*"Volpone" (1949-1952)
*"The Wish" (1954)

Orchestral

*"Ballet Mécanique" (1924)
*Capital of the World Suite
*Concerto for Chamber Orchestra
*Decatur at Algiers (1943)
*Hot-time Dance (1948)
* "Jazz Symphony" (1925)
*"McKonkey's Ferry" (1948)
*Piano Concerto (1926)
*Serenade for Strings No. 1
*Symphony for 5 Instruments
*Symphony No. 1
*Symphony No. 2
*Symphony No. 3
*Symphony No. 4
*Symphony No. 5 (1947-48)
*Symphony No. 6 (1947-48)
*Tom Sawyer - California Overture (1949)
*Violin Concerto (1946)

Chamber/Instrumental

*Piano Sonata No. 1
*Piano Sonata No. 2
*Piano Sonata No. 3 (1947)
*Piano Sonata No. 4 (1948)
*String Quartet No. 1 (1924)
*String Quartet No. 2 (1927)
*String Quartet No. 3 (1948) [Naxos.com (http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.559354&catNum=559354&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English)]
*Trumpet Sonata (1951)
*Violin Sonata No. 1
*Violin Sonata No. 2
*Violin Sonata No. 3
*Violin Sonata No. 4 (1948)
*Violin Sonatina (1945)

Film

Of his many film scores, "Dementia" (1955), which contains no dialog, only music, is believed by many to be his finest.

*"The Young Don't Cry" (1957)
*"The Pride and the Passion" (1957)
*"Air Power" (1956) TV series (unknown episodes)
*"Dementia" (1955)
*"Not as a Stranger" (1955)
*"Hunters of the Deep" (1954)
*"The Juggler" (1953)
*"Target Hong Kong" (1953)
*"Actors and Sin" (1952) (uncredited)
*"The Sniper" (1952)
*"Sirocco" (1951)
*"In a Lonely Place" (1950)
*"House by the River" (1950)
*"Tokyo Joe" (1949)
*"The Fighting Kentuckian" (1949)
*"We Were Strangers" (1949)
*"Knock on Any Door" (1949)
*"Along the Oregon Trail" (1947)
*"Repeat Performance" (1947)
*"That Brennan Girl" (1946) (score music)
*"Plainsman and the Lady" (1946)
*"Specter of the Rose" (1946)
*"Angels Over Broadway" (1940)
*"Adventure in Diamonds" (1940)
*"The Buccaneer" (1938)
*"Make Way for Tomorrow" (1937)
*"The Plainsman" (1936)
*"Once in a Blue Moon" (1935)
*"The Scoundrel" (1935)

Other careers

Apart from music, Antheil had many other pursuits. He was a corresponding reporter during World War II, contributing columns on endocrinology to "Esquire", and on love advice to the "Chicago Sun" Syndicate. He also wrote books, including an autobiography "Bad Boy of Music" (1945). His inventions included a patented torpedo guidance system and a broad-spectrum signal transmission system which then was called frequency skipping, co-authored with actress Hedy Lamarr. [The Trentonian http://www.capitalcentury.com/1927.html ]

In 2004, Paul Lehrman directed a documentary about Antheil, "Bad Boy of Music" -- Lehrman had created the first "married" print of "Ballet Mécanique" in 2000 with Antheil's music. In June 2008, playwright Elyse Singer premiered a new play in New York City, "Frequency Hopping", about Antheil and Lamarr's frequency-hopping invention. See Lehrman's website "antheil.org" for more information.

Later life

Antheil composed until he died of a heart attack in New York. His legacy included two accomplished students, Henry Brant and Benjamin Lees. His children were Peter and an illegitimate son, Chris Beaumont.

Large collections of Antheil works exist at the [http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/mus/mus.html Music Division] of [http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts] at Lincoln Center, Princeton University, Columbia University, UCLA, and Stanford University.

Written works

* "Death In the Dark", a crime novel edited and published by T. S. Eliot (1930)
* "Everyman His Own Detective: A Study of Glandular Criminology", New York City: Stackpole Sons (1937)
* "The Shape of the War to Come", a pamphlet (1940)
* "Bad Boy of Music", Garden City, New York: Doubleday (1945; various reprints and languages)

References

External links

* [http://msteer.co.uk/creative/anthiel/aintro.html/ "The Original American in Paris" - text of a programme written for BBCr3 by Michael Maxwell Steer in 1988]
* [http://www.antheil.org/ Website devoted to Antheil by Paul Lehrman]
* [http://www.paristransatlantic.com/antheil/ Paris Transatlantic Magazine: GeorgeAntheil.com]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005947/ IMDB page of Antheil's film scores]
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/ballet_pr.html Article in Wired magazine about George Antheil and a modern-day performance of Ballet Mécanique]
* [http://www.frequencyhopping.net Website for play "Frequency Hopping"]

Listening

* [http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/composer.pl?comp=210 Art of the States: George Antheil] "Second Sonata for Violin" (1923) and "Dreams" (1934-35)
* [http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/antheil.htm Tate Modern Online: George Antheil] "La femme 100 têtes" (1929)
* [http://www.guylivingston.com/content/audio.shtml Piano Music] "Fourth Sonata", "Sonate Sauvage", "Woman Sonata" performed by Guy Livingston
* [http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/programs/program3.html American Mavericks: Program 3 - Oh to Be Popular] Three works performed by the San Francisco Symphony
* [http://www.newmusicjukebox.org/composers/c_works.asp?ComposerID=17821&ActorID=33380 New Music Jukebox: George Antheil] Three works performed by the American Composers Orchestra
* [http://otherminds.org/shop/Antheilcd.html From Other Minds] "Antheil Plays Antheil"
* [http://delsolquartet.com/sample.html Del Sol Quartet: George Antheil] "The Complete Works for String Quartet" by Del Sol Quartet