Robert Reilly's article on George Antheil in Crisis: Politics, Culture, & the Church includes some quotes from the composer...
re: Ballet mécanique:
I had no idea of copying a machine directly down into music, so to speak. My idea, rather, was to warn the age in which I was living of the simultaneous beauty and danger of its own unconscious mechanistic philosophy, aesthetic.
After moving to Hollywood in 1935 and studying Beethoven and other classical composers:
I discovered, for instance, that Sibelius was not so bad after all. How effete my tastes had become in Paris.
...that no young artist starts the world all over again for himself but merely continues...the heritage of the past, pushing if possible on a little further.
A check of imdb shows 90 film scores by Antheil including Hellcats of the Navy, Along the Oregon Trail, Hopalong Rides Again, The Plainsman and others of similar insignificance. It's interesting how reaction to Ballet mécanique hurt his career and yet the work is his greatest legacy.
Thank you for the Antheil link. Do you think Antheil will be enjoying a sort of revival soon? What is the buzz on George?
Posted by: Isaac Watras | March 15, 2005 at 09:04 AM
Other Minds has just released the complete Antheil string quartets, performed by the Del Sol Quartet.
http://otherminds.org/shtml/Antheilcd2.shtml
You can also hear Charles Amirkhanian's documentary on Antheil at http://radiom.org/antheil.php.
Posted by: Richard Friedman | March 20, 2005 at 08:32 PM