Propelling Music: George Antheil (1900-1959)

[snyprrr]

ok, I'm taking the plunge... please direct me... I'm sure I've heard, but can't remember a lick...

[snyprrr]

So far I have found nothing here for me


nothing

[cilgwyn]

I like symphonies 3 and 4 most.

I like symphonies 1 & 6 the most!

[Contemporaryclassical]

I think Ballet Mechanique is really cool.
It's like an industrial combination of Les Noces and Nancarrow 

[Heck148]

Symphony No 4 is my favourite - a great score in the spirit of Shostakovich's Leningrad or Khachaturian's 'Bell Symphony' (No2). I have four ( ) recordings on Everest (Goossens), Naxos, CPO and Cala (premiere with Stokowski). ....

Yes, Antheil #4, a fine war-time symphony - I have those 3 recordings - Goosens/LSO, Kuchar/UkrainainSO and Stokowski/NBC.

Stoki's is the best played, but the sound is vintage '44, Goosens is better recorded, but the playing  is a bit rough - 50s LSO, pre-Monteux shaping it up; Kuchar has the present day sound, but the playing isn't as good, IMO...like them all tho - also like Sym #6 on Kuchar's Disc, along with McKonkey's Ferry [Washington crosses Delaware at Trenton music]

[Mirror Image]

So are Ballet Mechanique and Death of Machines the only heavy things he wrote or is there more?

I'm not sure about 'heavy' but his Violin Sonata No. 2 is cool as f***.

https://www.youtube.com/v/kqRXw_NWZfA

[vandermolen]

There's a new recording of Symphony 4 coming out (Chandos) 

[vandermolen]

And here it is!

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[cilgwyn]

Ah,you got there before me! I just spotted that!! Now that's a composer I like. I find his music quite fascinating at it's best. There are only a few pieces I don't like. Whether this will improve on the Cpo recordings (the premiere aside) remains to be seen;but you'll have that Chandos sound,I suppose. I particularly like his First and Sixth symphonies. Some quite extraordinary sonorities there. But I like allot of his shorter orchestral works,his ballet Capital of the World,the Piano Concertos,the Ballet Mécanique.

[cilgwyn]

That said. I do wish Chandos would go back to what made them such a great label. Recording music that hasn't already been given first rate recordings elsewhere. On the plus side,the more attention this rewarding composer gets,the better!

[vandermolen]

That said. I do wish Chandos would go back to what made them such a great label. Recording music that hasn't already been given first rate recordings elsewhere. On the plus side,the more attention this rewarding composer gets,the better!

Very much agree with you.
They never completed their Malcolm Williamson series for example and I wish they'd record Goossens's Symphony 2 as well as No.1.

[cilgwyn]

The Goossens,really did bowl me over. Epic,is the word!!
I like the artwork for the Chandos Antheil cd. It seems to go well with his muse. Though the choices for the Cpo series are amongst my favourites. I wish Chandos had recorded some more Cyril Scott! The Welsh music series was very short lived. So much fine Welsh music to record,too! I recorded the Nocturne (for orchestra) by Morfydd Owen that was broadcast on Radio 3,recently. I thought it was abslolutely lovely. Nothing deep,I suppose,but beautifully orchestrated and a lovely tune. Living in Wales I keep hearing about Morfydd Owen,who still holds a certain fascination here. Glamorous,married to a famous psychanalyst and neurologist (biographer of Freud) she hung out with famous people,died young.....some people think she was murdered!!! Chandos have never reissued their set of the Daniel Jones String quartets!! Their recent recordings of Raff,Atterberg and now,Antheil,have all got top notch rival recordings from Cpo and Tudor. Why do you think they dropped Malcolm Williamson. Did they think he wasn't quite as approachable as the kind of music they usually record? Perhaps 'Malcolm' made them think he was someone else? After recording the second cd they suddenly realised their mistake!! They dropped Kenneth Leighton too,didn't they?

[vandermolen]

The Goossens,really did bowl me over. Epic,is the word!!
I like the artwork for the Chandos Antheil cd. It seems to go well with his muse. Though the choices for the Cpo series are amongst my favourites. I wish Chandos had recorded some more Cyril Scott! The Welsh music series was very short lived. So much fine Welsh music to record,too! I recorded the Nocturne (for orchestra) by Morfydd Owen that was broadcast on Radio 3,recently. I thought it was abslolutely lovely. Nothing deep,I suppose,but beautifully orchestrated and a lovely tune. Living in Wales I keep hearing about Morfydd Owen,who still holds a certain fascination here. Glamorous,married to a famous psychanalyst and neurologist (biographer of Freud) she hung out with famous people,died young.....some people think she was murdered!!! Chandos have never reissued their set of the Daniel Jones String quartets!! Their recent recordings of Raff,Atterberg and now,Antheil,have all got top notch rival recordings from Cpo and Tudor. Why do you think they dropped Malcolm Williamson. Did they think he wasn't quite as approachable as the kind of music they usually record? Perhaps 'Malcolm' made them think he was someone else? After recording the second cd they suddenly realised their mistake!! They dropped Kenneth Leighton too,didn't they?

Not sure about your Williamson question. Maybe they didn't sell enough copies of volumes one and two. They released at leat three Leighton CDs of the orchestral works I think although the standout work as far as I'm concerned is the haunting Symphony 3. Morfydd Owen sounds interesting! I've read the Ernest Jones biography of Freud if he was her husband.

[cilgwyn]

Sorry,it was just a lighthearted remark,because he's a Malcolm,as in Arnold;and like Arnold he does seem to have used some popular  influences in his music (?). It was also a swipe at the seeming reluctance of Chandos to record more! I have taped some of his (MW's) music off the radio in the past,and sampled bits,and I've always found his music less approachable,and personal  than Arnold's (more astringent). I would have thought that would be one of the reasons why Chandos would be more willing to invest in recordings of his music. He might not please the critics,and he might have written some more taxing music;but he's more of a crowd pleaser in some ways. You have popular works like the Dances and Tam O' Shanter Overture;and fun stuff.like the Grand Grand Overture,with the vacumn cleaners and floor polishers. I can't think of anything comparable in Malcolm Williamson's output. Maybe there is?!! I remember my parents sitting down to watch a program about Malcolm....Arnold years ago. My late mother knew his music via the more upbeat Dances,Beckus the Dandipratt, and (relatively,upbeat!) Fifth Symphony. I remember her shock when,expecting a happy,jolly looking,plump fellow;this man appeared on the screen,his voice,broken in anguish and bittereness,berating his treatment by the British establishment!

[Karl Henning]

I need to make a second pass through the Antheil symphonies, thanks for the reminder via keeping this thread active, chaps! 

[Karl Henning]

Cross-Post

Antheil
Decatur at Algiers (1943)
Symphony № 5 « Joyous » (1947-48)
Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Wolff

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This is only the second time I've listened to these, and no good reason for the long interval.

The brief tone-poem is first-rate 'musical tourism.'  I'll say that it is every bit as good as his score for In a Lonely Place is, and (better than some peers) it is genuine concert music, and not just a superior scoring cue which sounds well played by the Boston Pops.

Antheil is better than a mere pasticheur;  he has his own specific gravity as a composer.  He does appear as something of a chameleon in the Fifth Symphony, and with clear musical intent.  The opening Allegro will, in various elements, remind the Prokofievophile of a certain other Fifth Symphony, and at times rather strongly.  Having said that, though, this strikes me as the work of a separate composer making fond allusion, as something rather bardic, and not as a weak composer resorting to putting on the overcoat of a master.  The Adagio molto is an essay in tender Americana which sits at the table between Ives and Copland; three composers, three voices, speaking much the same language, each with his own cadence and inflections.  To seal the musical jest of the Fifth Symphony (which is in fact more ebullient than jokey, as its title suggests) the Allegretto third movement opens with a clearly upbeat adaptation of the large snapping intervals which open the Shostakovich Op.47.  It's been said that Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream take exactly the same premise, but make of it a comedy in one case, and a tragedy in the other;  Antheil here seems to take that broodingly tragic figure from the Shostakovich, and show us, "This is how one of Les Six might have written this symphonic movement."

I'll offer the opinion that Antheil here deserves for us to listen past the apparent (and indeed open) allusions, and that the Fifth Symphony is good work, and work which does in fact belong to him.

[cilgwyn]

You must be impressed,Karl. I think this is one of the longest posts you've ever contributed to this forum?!!
You're usually so concise!

[Karl Henning]

You must be impressed,Karl. I think this is one of the longest posts you've ever contributed to this forum?!!
You're usually so concise!

[Karl Henning]

You must be impressed, Karl.

Yesterday, I revisited the Fourth, Fifth & Sixth Symphonies (and Decatur in Algiers).  It was only the second time I'd had a go at the symphonies, the interval wide enough that I cannot say with certainty, but my impression is that they strike me as significantly stronger pieces, this second time.  The 'problem' (we might say) is—what Antheil himself shrewdly, but not necessarily cynically, capitalized on in his early success—the 'Bad Boy of Music' image.  Say what you will about these symphonies, they aren't Épater la bourgeoisie material.  There is humor in them, but it is good-natured, and embracing;  the musical wit is of a high order, though.

I'll collect thoughts about the Fourth & Sixth soon(-ish).

[Cato]

This is only the second time I've listened to these, and no good reason for the long interval.

The brief tone-poem is first-rate 'musical tourism.'  I'll say that it is every bit as good as his score for In a Lonely Place is, and (better than some peers) it is genuine concert music, and not just a superior scoring cue which sounds well played by the Boston Pops.

Speaking of his film scores, one article quotes Antheil as saying that his music saved some turkeys from being complete flops...

From a 1955 New York Times review, which included a movie called Picasso:

...As for "Dementia," it is a first attempt by John Parker, who wrote, directed and produced this unconvincing exploration of a girl's mind driven by a rejection complex to murderous delusions. Surrealist devices transport the victim through various scenes to a graveyard, where she butchers her father. This is but one tableau in a gruesome gallery. An understanding of Mr. Parker's desire to say something new cannot reconcile one to the lack of poetic sense, analytical skill and cinematic experience exhibited here.

The sound track shows some thought with a well-managed jazz sequence and an impressive score by George Antheil. But such virtues of detail provide only meager relief from the pictorial crudities. "Dementia" does not represent the big league, where Picasso belongs.


DEMENTIA, written, directed and produced by John Parker; music by George Anthell; with the voice of Marni Nixon and music by Shorty Rogers and His Giants.

My emphasis above.