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1900-1959
•George Antheil was an American forward-thinking composer, pianist, author and inventor
•Born in Trenton, New Jersey
•Helped to invent a secret code system (spread spectrum) to help the allies defeat the Germans in
WWII.
•Never graduated high school
•Early inspirations: Ernest Bloch, Leo Ornstein, Paul Rosenfeld, John Marin, Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret
Anderson, and Georgette Leblanc
• The Bad Boy of Music (1945), he was "so crazy about music", that his mother sent him to the
countryside where no pianos were available.
Le Ballet Mécanique (1924)
• Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written,
and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in
collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley
Murphy
•Although the music was originally made for the
film, the two works were not put together until
the 1990s because the music was 30 minutes
and the film, 19.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_bboH9p1Ys
The sonata rondo form follows an [AB] [A’C] [A’’B’’] [Coda] pattern, where A is a first theme, B is a second
theme, and C is a middle section loosely related to A and B:
A – Theme 1 starts at the beginning of the piece. It is easily identified by the oscillating melody in the
xylophones. It moves through rhythmic and intervallic variations until a bridge into the next theme (measure
38 in the original scoring).
B – Theme 2 (m77) features the pianolas, supported by drums. The melody is mostly built from parallel
series of consonant chords, sometimes sounding pentatonic but often making no tonal sense at all. Antheil
uses pianolas for things that would be difficult for human players (a 7-note chord at m142, for example).
A’ – Xylophones return in triple meter to recall Theme 1 (m187). This is not strictly a repeat of Theme 1 but
another variation and development upon it. This section descends into increasing chaos (starting m283)
which signals a transition into part C (m328).
C – The xylophones and pianolas play a new tune. They stay in better rhythmic agreement here and give a
more ordered feel to this section. The xylophones eventually cut out to make way for a serene pianola
passage.
A’’B’’ – The xylophones return (m403) with the theme from the beginning. There are differences from the
original AB part, including new bitonal passage (m530) and miniature round (m622) between xylophones
and pianolas. The pentatonic melody, hinted in part B, returns (m649) and gets developed in the context of
the round.
Coda – A startling change occurs when all instruments cut out except for a lone bell (m1134). This signals the
beginning of a very long and thinly textured coda. It alternates between irregular measures of complete
silence and pianola with percussion. The measures of silence get longer until the listener begins to wonder
whether the piece is already over. Finally, there is a crescendo of pianola, a flurry of percussion and a bang
to mark the real ending. The score indicates the last measure of the piece to be ended with the pianos and
drums only, but modern performances have the xylophones joining back in and doubling the melody of the
pianolas to create a more firm, solid, and recognizable ending.
http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?tabid=2419&State_
2872=3&ComposerID_2872=35&CategoryID_2872=0
Legacy
Henry Brant and Benjamin Lees
https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=fyglGX8fPmE
https://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=HEBKBc0DA
D0