George Antheil re-assessed vol. 3 : "Zingareska" symphony, John Storgårds

The Chandos George Antheil series with John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic continues with Volume III featuring Antheil's Symphony no 1 "Zingareska" (1920-1922, rev 1923).  This series is important because it highlights Antheil's primary status as a composer of art music for concert performance. Indeed, he is infinitely better known as the avant-gardiste who created Ballet méchanique than for the music he later wrote in Hollywood.  Ballet méchanique is a seminal work, very much a part of the cultural and artistic renaissance that was Paris in the 1920's, and defines Antheil's whole career.  He started out as a composer of "serious" art music and continued as such until his death. His finest music for cinema was also written for  independent, often obscure, art-movie studios. Please read more about Ballet mécanique HERE and HERE and much else on Antheil elsewhere on this site.

With Antheil's Symphony no 1, Storgårds puts the focus directly on Antheil's early work, before he went to Paris, and places it in relation to later works like McKonkey’s Ferry (1948) and Nocturne in Skyrockets (1951), receiving its first recording here.  Antheil began what was to be his first Symphony when he was barely 20, but its originality and creative vision are remarkable for the period, particularly for a a man who was still a student.  It was inspired by sounds of the area in which Antheil grew up,"a deliberate abandonment of academic compositional techniques in favour of music driven bty emotional and atmospheric stimuli", as Mervyn Cooke writes in his notes.  Yet it is not a work of nostalgia, but incoporates new ideas and influences, including ragtime and circus music, and the music of Stravinsky, with special reference to Petroushka.  It epitomizes the two sides of Antheil's art : modern America and Europe, and draws them together.  The title "Zingareska" was not Antheil's, but one can hear why the heady eroticism of gypsy music would express the nature of  a free spirit like Antheil. 

A plaintive solo violin announces the beginning of the first movement, answered by darker, more ambigious winds and brass. The mood is nocturnal, evoking "the the fragrance of honeysuckle on the New Jersey night air" as Antheil wrote later, but also disturbing. Dark, ambiguous forces surround the Innocente of the violin and the pastoral woodwind theme that follows it. A section marked Volupté surges, suggesting passion, but the movement ends in sharp dischords and a Lamentoso.  Perhaps a clue might lie in that Antheil was intensely in love, but the girl's mother disapproved, and took her off to Europe. For Antheil himself, this was the impetus that led him to head there too, changing his destiny. In contrast, the second movement is wilder, more "primitive" in the sense of Stravinsky and early modern art.  Bold, robust chords lead to stillness from which a solo violin emerges, followed by clarinet. Darkness encroaches again, blown away temporarily by wild "ragtime" rhythms and angular striding steps.  The parts for winds and brass  are cheeky, almost cartoon-like in their defiance, to the extent that the orchestral players of the Berlin Philharmonic under Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg burst out laughing in rehearsal. Only the first two movements were premiered in 1922 on Antheil's suggestion.
The third movement, though, is poignant, percussion and strings creating a bell-like backdrop to the entry of the solo violin, which appears like a dancer, alone on stage. Petroushka, the puppet who is forced to wander but but has no home, setting the context for the ragtime and circus themes. Carnival may be fun, but masks hidden sorrow.  Hence the chill of the ending, and descending chords.  Is there resolution in the last movement, or more defiance ? The exuberant "ragtime" theme alternates with themes that are more haunted (exteneded wind choruses), and a section marked "sardonic"before a suddden, elusive coda. Antheil's teacher, Ernest Bloch, had such regard for the sympathy that he wanted Monteux to conduct it, and later, hearing that Antheil was penniless, helped him out financially. 

Antheil's McKonkey's Ferry, from 1948, is a concert overture nspired by the image of George Washington crossing the Delaware in 1776.  It is dramatic, and patriotic, but as so often with Antheil, there can be other interpretations.  By this stage, the composer had been back in the United States for fifteen years, having been forced out of Europe by the rise of the Nazis.  Perhaps the aural images of  the ferocious snowstorm through which Washington battled give the surface triumphalism in this music more personal meaning.  The Capitol of the World (1953-55), a suite for orchestra from a ballet based on a tale by Ernest Hemingway, is also bittersweet. A waiter pretends to be a matador, but is killed, impaled by knives embedded on a chair representing an artificial bull.  So much for glorious fantasies about the bullring ! Do not be deluded by the flamenco flourishes and lively rhythms : this is tragedy, all the more painful because the subject is tawdry.  With The Golden Bird, (1921) we return once again to Antheil's youth.  Antheil was a virtuoso pianist, and this piece, originally for piano, which he himself orchestrated, demonstates his facility for exotic effects even at an early age.
In Nocturne in Skyrockets (1951) we glimpse the heights Antheil was capable of achieving. It is a tightly constructed yet almost magical miniature, with long, searching chords rising upwards, as if into the freedom of the upper atmosphere. Delicate spiralling notes suggest fireworks, sudden explosions of light in a dark sky, doomed to self-destruct. Yet for a moment, such beauty !   With this Chandos series, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic make a strong case for appreciating  Antheil at his best : a composer whose work stands comparison with Charles Ives and Edgard Varèse, in terms of the boldness of conception, but with an entirely individual and original personality.   Please also read my review HERE of the second volume in this series, with Antheil's Symphonies no 3 "American"and No 6 "After Delacroix" and much else about Antheil on this site.

George Antheil re-assessed : John Storgårds

To dismiss the music of George Antheil, without understanding its context, is unfair. John Storgårds makes a good case for Antheil with this recording, the second in his series for Chandos, with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.  Antheil (1900-1969) moved to Paris in 1922, when it was the centre of the avant garde.  Everyone who could flocked to Paris, and its explosion of creative innovation, in art, literature, music, dance, cinema and social change. Antheil's Ballet mécanique remains an icon, its principles influencing the rest of his career.  Antheil's score, built around 16 synchronized player pianos, with sirens and aeroplane propellers for special effects, reflects in music concepts of modernity inspired by Futurism and mechanical activity.  Multiple processes happen independently, yet move together, as in a machine. Just as in the paintings of Ferdinand Léger, with whom Antheil worked, the passage of time is fragmented, frozen in motion, springing suddenly to life. Man Ray's cinematography operated like a kaleidoscope, fractured images forming and reforming in new patterns. It caused a sensation in Paris, but new York wasn't ready for it. After the rise of Hitler,  Antheil returned to the United States, where like so many other modernist exiles, he had to make a living writing for the movies. 

It's against this background that Antheil's music needs to be heard.  His symphonies no 3 "American" and no 6 "After Delacroix" are true symphonies, not film music, but show the influence of techniques used in Ballet mécanique and in cinema.  Antheil's Symphony no 3 "American" is a travelogue, a collage of impressions inspired by Antheil's travels across America.  The first movement opens with an expansive fanfare. If it is a portrait of New York City, its energy might reflect the buzz of urban life, brief snatches of melody rising beneath its vigorous zig zag patterns. The andante movement apparently describes New Orleans : quieter, and more nostalgic, with darker undercurrents and a subtle suggestion of brass bands, culminating in a Marcia for high winds.  The heart of the symphony, though, lies in the third movement, a scherzo with the title "The Golden Spike". This comes from a score for a film about the Union Pacific Railway which Antheil was working on for  Cecil B De Mille, but the producer, alarmed about the strong nature of Antheil's music, re-assigned the work to the studio music department.  After this, Antheil worked mainly for independents, like  Ben Hecht, and smaller companies where he could write what he wanted, and cult classics like Dementia also known as Daughter of Horror (please read my review of that here) "I've saved a few flops in my time", he said, with more than a trace of irony.  

George Antheil in Hollywood, 1946

The starting point for Antheil's Symphony no 6 "After Delacroix" is Delacroix's painting "Liberty Leading the People" which shows Liberty leading the revolution of 1830.  Marianne (the symbol of France) is bare breasted - exposed and in danger - but fearless.  Strong chords loom up,  followed by rushing rippling figures.  But Antheil isn't illustrating.  Explicit quotes from The Battle Cry of Freedom, indicate that his concerns were closer to home, while remembering his roots in the "revolution" of Paris in the 1920's.  The symphony was premiered by Pierre Monteux in 1949, but received with incomprehension.  It was mauled by critics for sounding like Shostakovich, a rather unpleasant slur in McCarthyite times, given that Antheil had been writing revolutionary music long before Shostakovich, who wasn't in any case a party apparatchik. Why do modern critics still repeat reactionary clichés without listening or knowing the composer ? The other two movements don't sound remotely like Shostakovich.   The larghetto is moody and opaque, a curving, almost penitential line gradually morphing into  waywardness then continuing at a steady pace.  The last movement moves swiftly, subtle shifts of tempo building up to a riotous finale that ends with an exuberant flourish. 

Antheil's "American" credentials are authentic. In Archipelago (1935) a rhumba, he experiments with Latin American forms, splicing them together in highly individual collage. In Hot-Time Dance (1948), he packs multiple changing moods into a four minute epigram.  Antheil's Spectre of the Rose Waltz comes from his music for the film Specter of the Rose, made by Ben Hecht.in 1946.  The movie is way too intellectual to have been a box office hit. It compresses Berlioz, Carl Maria von Weber, Stravinsky, Nijinsky and Diaghilev into a tightly scripted plot that blends expresssionist horror with scathing wit. (Please read more about it here)  Again, there is a subtext, in that Antheil knew Stravinsky in Paris and could poke fun, while respecting Stravinsky as a composer.  Antheil's Spectre of the Rose Waltz spins round like a waltz, romantic on the surface, but solidly structured.   Far less populist and popular than many composers around him, Antheil's reputation is undergoing reassessment.  He's much closer to Edgard Varèse, George Gershwin, Charles Ives and Elliott Carter than to Aaron Copland, and deserves being taken seriously.  Thanks to John Storgårds and other conductors like Ingo Metzmacher, who also has him in his repertoire, George Antheil's time is coming.  there's lots about Antheil (and about experimental cinema) on this site - please explore !

Gershwin restored to true greatness, Messiaen Prom 6

BBC Prom 6 - Gershwin An American in Paris (new edition) and Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie, two of the 20th century's most iconic pieces, with Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphont Orchestra. Wonderful programme, but pity about the BBC marketing, obsessed as usual with themes and non-musical targets, missing the music itself.  Sure, this is Leonard Bernstein's anniversary but the world didn't revolve around him.  Bernstein conducted the premiere of Turangalîla-Symphonie  but only by chance, and didn't like it, which may have spoiled its reception.  There's a difference between musical perception in Europe and in the US which goes back a long way.  Nadia Boulanger and Messiaen both taught in Paris but operated in different directions.  There are teachers who teach students what to think, and teachers who teach students to think for themselves  Boulanger inspired cult-like deference, while Messiaen's students developed in many different ways.Messiaen's   students wereore diverse, while Boulanger's were largely English speakers. Bernstein thus absorbed the values of Boulanger devotees like Copland, conducting new music though not the new music of Messiaen and his circles which included Boulez. Messiaen adored America and Boulez spent much time conducting there so it's ironic to ponder what might have been. 

When Bernstein conducted  the Turangalîla-Symphonie in 1948, it was way too far for some to grasp. One critic panned it for its "fundamental emptiness… appalling melodic tawdriness…..a tune for Dorothy Lamour in a sarong, a dance for Hindu hillbillies”. If ever there was music in Technicolor, this is it, complete with cinematic swirls of the ondes martenot which we now assocaite with horror movies, though for Messaien there were no such connotations.  .Sakari Oramo doesn't conduct a lot of Messiaen but his Turangalîla-Symphonie is wonderful because it seems to appeal to his exuberant spirit.  This symphony explodes with the sheer joy of being alive.  If it is oddball, that's good, because its energy embraces human experience in all its aspects. Why shouldn't serious music be blissfully happy ?  Please read my article Sublimated sex: Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie for more. This also describes Oramo conducting it, with the BBCSO at the Barbican in May 2017. This Proms performance was more sedate, though good, mainly because the emphasis was on Gershwin.  

And rightly so since Oramo was conducting the UK premiere of a revised edition of An American in Paris which restores its original verve and originality . The piece is so well known from the movie of the same name that we could forget how Gershwin himself would have conceived it.  In the heady days of 1920's Paris it would have been innovative and deliciously subversive. Taxi horns and jazz syncopation ! The risqué world of modernity blowing into the concert hall !  Thus the vigour of this performance where Oramo brought out the audacity and freshness so it shone anew freed from decades of perceived performance practice. It's so vivid that many will prefer An American in Paris in its more neutral Hollywood form. But that does not do Gershwin justice.  This edition (and this performance) restores its true context.  For more about the new edition, by Mark Clague,  please read HERE.  Like George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique (1922/4) it represents a time when Europe and America were truly together and in tune at the forefront of a New Age. Lots more on Antheil on this site, please search. 

Maschinist Hopkins : Surrealism in opera

Max Brand's Maschinist Hopkins, which premiered in Duisberg in 1929: an opera where the music functions like a giant machine, an "industrial" opera inspired by the futurist, modernist expressionism of the Zeitgeist of the 1920's. Think of Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1927) about which I've written here.

The Prelude to Maschinist Hopkins whirrs ominously, at first tentatively, then builds up a head of steam and bursts into life.   We're in the Proletarierviertel of a huge city, in "Bondy's Bar". Jim, a foreman, is with Nell, his wife. Note the vaguely Anglo names,  a typical construct of the period, frequently used by Bertolt Brecht.  Think The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny,  and "psychological" films like Nerven and Dr Caligari.  Next, we're in the Maschinenhalle at night. The machines are still operating but the voices of the choir are strangely unnatural, as if they've been hypnotized in robotic motion. The different parts of the chorus interact, like cogs in a wheel, churning together. Individual voices rise above the murmur "Schweiget ! Wartet!", some voices vocalizing at top pitch, like vapours of steam.  then the music jerks and chunders. Nell can hear the voices of the wheels. "Schwester Welle, schnell, schnell, quelle, quelle".  Jim's silhouette appears in a window: he's upset because Nell isn't at home where she should be. He and Bill, a machinist can't comprehend why Nell is wailing.  Time passes.  Bill the worker has become a capitalist, sitting in a snazzy modern  office, conducting business all over the world.  But all is not well. Maschinist Hopkins warns that the workers will strike. Bill kicks him out, but Nell sympathizes.

Suddenly, bizarrely, we're in a pleasure garden with a jazz band singing skat about "Turkestan". The text and music were by George Antheil,  a bona fide American, though a leading figure in the Paris avant garde at the time. (Lots more on him on this site.)   A long tango, where dancers in eccentric dress strut their stuff.  The shock of the surreal !  "I'll buy that!" says Bill.  The orchestra plays a mysterious, bluesy tune. Are Nell and Bill under a spell?  On the terrace they sing a love duet "Stille, schweigen", the sounds of a saxophone weaving around the strings.  Imagine the love duet from Die tote Stadt, edges blurred and smoky.

Just as we drift off in reverie, the machine intrudes. We're back in the Maschinenhall, all systems in motion. Wild, circular lines, suggesting mad frenzy, interpolating with violent stark chords, then a wild climax with sirens, wind machines and cymbals. Almost  Edgard Varèse.  the choirs sing sotto voce, with menace. Tension builds up again: jagged percussion. Hopkins cries "Die Maschinen sollen stehen"! Ellipses of brass, crashing cymbals.  Another sudden, disconcerting change. Nell is putting on makeup in the dressing room of a theatre. "Mirrors are mysterious things" she muses.  Hopkins materializes behind her. She offers him money to get out. He won't be bought: he thinks she's killed Jim (who hasn't appeared for a while). They tussle.  Chords like the "curtains" in  Wozzeck.  Outside, the Kappellmeister and Regisseur remain busily unaware. "Hahahahaha...." Nell turns up, arms full of flowers   But is all well ? Hopkins knifes Bill in the darkness. Bill's final cries include the word "Nell!" In an empty street by a long, forbidding wall, a scene straight out of the movies.  Nell meets Hopkins.  "Why, why" she cries. But Hopkins knows  "Es kann nichts sein".

Switch! Back to Bondy's bar, packed with workers on a night out. Bill, in grubby clothes, sits with a glass of schnapps, looking forlorn. The orchestra strikes up a manic, whirling dance.  Young girl sings a ditty about youth. An out-of-tune electric piano plays a foxtrot. Men pour into the bar, teasing Bill, mocking Nell.  Bill can take no more and leaves, but, outside in the alley, he hears Nell, telling him she's nearly home.  Is it a dream? the music builds to a frenzy. There's a scream and repeated blows are heard. Cut back to the Maschinenhalle at night, where the machines churn and the workers' voices chant, drone-like. Who can Bill turn to?   He goes to the switch which powers the machine. It sings, with the voice of Nell "In my womb, you will be reborn", which makes sense if you remember the Female Figure in Metropolis.  Screams all round, "Stop him ! Stop him". Hopkins appears and knocks Bill out.  But dawn is breaking, and the machines rev up once again. "Ein neuen Tag der Arbeit jetzt an!" he sings. The workers join in, chanting mechanistically "Arbeit ! Arbeit ! Arbeit !"

If ever an opera begged to be remade as film, it's Maschinist Hopkins where scene changes are so sudden and drastic, angles so skewed and awry that  they'd probably need to be shot in black and white.  Great chorus scenes, lines of workers, dancers, robots moving en masse and in formation.   Musically, Maschinist Hopkins captures the frantic spirit of the Jazz Age as defined in a grim, industrial, Middle European context.  Just as Max Brand's later experiments in electronic music and synthesizers came - just - after the pioneers in the field, so does his opera connect to other operas and films of its time. But a jolly romp it is and fun.  And it's much better to look ahead than to be clueless.  I've been listening to the recording from ORF where Peter Keuchsnig conducted the Radiosymphonie-Orchester Wien, the ORF-Chor, Cynthia Makris, Günther Neumann and Bodo Brinkmann, recorded in the Musikverein in 1988. 

Please explorre more around this site, lots and lots on Weimar music, art film and opera

Berlioz meets George Antheil The Spectre of the Rose

Carl Maria von Weber's Invitation to the Dance, orchestrated by Hector Berlioz, the music upon which Fokine created the ballet La spectre de la rose (1911) for VaclavNijinsky. But that's not all!   George Antheil re-adapted Berlioz re-adapting Weber for the movie Spectre of the Rose (1946). Antheil created the music for Ballet Mécanique, the brilliant Dadaist masterpiece created by Ferinard Léger. Antheil was at the heart of the Paris avant garde in the 1920's, hanging out with Man Ray, Stravinsky and pretty much everyone. For him, film was an art form, created by intellectuals for lively minds. Even in Hollywood, Antheil managed to connect with the adventurous and creative.  Lots on this site about Antheil, and on the other experimental and art film of the 20's and 30's.

The movie, Specter of the Rose (1946) was so quirky that there was no way it would have been a hit at the box office hit like so much else that Ben Hecht did.  Allusions to art and the arts community crackle all through the script: it's a highly crafted satire with killer bon mots. An elderly former ballerina sits knitting. She's importuned by a bankrupt promoter called Poliakoff, played by an actor called Chekhov, as the personification of High Camp. In this little world of losers who once had dreams, characters  sport fancy foreign names and speak with theatrical flourish, and repartees as sharp as in Marx Brothers comedy. There's a brilliant vignette when a hardboiled hack gets drunk and spouts philosophy (which is actually quite radical pointed, politically). "We lived in a poem" says Mme La Sylph.  Hence the story is built around the ballet La spctre de la Rose. where a young girl falls in love with the idea of art and imagines that a Rose has come alive. to dance with her.  The movie, however, morphs into murder mystery.  Did the principal dancer Sanine (played by an actor called Kirov!) murder his first wife in a fit of madness?  She died dancing on stage. Will he kill his new dance partner, his new wife Heidi.  

Against all odds, the company, on the verge of bankruptcy, becomes a hit. At the peak of success, Daniner and Heidi disappear and the show closes. Sanine has had a psychotic episode. "The rose has a thorn, the rose has a knife and dances around you till you die"  Sabine puts on his Rose costume and dances about the apartment in a mad scene, where Antheil's reworking of Berlioz/Weber explodes into mayhem. With a Nijinsky-style leap, Sanine jumps out of the window, to his death. Poliakoff , now broke again, goes back to tacky touring shows "with the trunks, the hair pulling and the mad love songs from Old Vienna", "It's better than begging" says Mme La Sylph.  Then you realize why she's a tricoteuse. The Specter of the rose is gallows humour.

George Antheil, Daughter of Horror

George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique (1924)  (read more here) is one of the seminal classics of the avant garde. But what happened to him?  Like just about everyone else, he found work in Hollywood, getting work where he could. But his creative spirit wasn't entirely dimmed. .For Halloween, I watched Daughter of Horror (1953)  for which Antheil wrote the soundtrack. His contribution, though, is huge - there are  hardly any spoken words, no dialogue, or even narrative. The music "is" the story. This isn't your average B horror flick. It's an extended musical work, illustrated with images. And gosh, what music!  Think about Tom Waits music videos.  Or Eraserhead and Twin Peaks. George Antheil got there first, establishing the iconography.  The director and producer was John J Parker, who doesn't seem to have made other movies, which also suggests Antheil's primary role as auteur.

A woman walks into the sea, apparently crushed in the surf. She wakes in a bedroom, feeling anxious. As she walks down the stairs she sees a cop arrest a man for beating up a woman.  The music wails: a long wordless vocalize like an unending scream. This might now seem standard horror movie fare, but Antheil was doing this very early on and very well indeed. The singer, incidentally, is Marni Nixon who also had a career outside Hollywood, making some of the first recordings of Charles Ives songs, for example.  The woman wanders into a street that could come straight out of a Tom Waits set. Drunks hang out in the shadows, moving with strange, contorted griomaces - very Tom Wait !  A newspaper seller holds a up a headline about a murder. The woman seems to think she's guilty. The newspaper seller is a dwarf - another Tom Waits image. As is the flower seller from whom the bent cop buys a carnation. A drunk confronts the woman. Does she stab him? Why does the cop beat the drunk into a pulp? 

The woman enters a nightclub. She looks horribly out of place in her repressed tweed suit and no makeup. Listen to the jazz band though,  African drums and, of all things, a French horn. The woman goes in a cab with a strange man.  Served by a butler, the man gobbles a meal, which disgusts the woman, whom he completely ignores. Is she really there in the room with him? She stabs him with a shiny flick knife. The butler seems totally unperturbed. As he dies the man grabs hold of the woman's ornate pendant necklace, the only thing about her appearance that looks individual. Great shots of the elevator and the magnificent marble staircase she runs down. 

Switch to a bit of cod psychoanalysis.  In a graveyard a faceless man shows the woman her fatrher, a drunken, abusive slob, and her mother, a good time girl but frigid..  The sequence of events hardly matters. Aware that the dead man still has her pendant in his hands, the woman  cuts the man's hands open, watched by faceless observers. The actor who plays the woman's father also appears at the beginning of the film as a grinning man, and again later in the crowd who the woman runs into, who raise their arms, Nazi style, against her. She wakes back in her room. Is it all a dream? She opens a cupborad, and there's the dead man's hand, still grasping her pendant, and moving. All this might seem kitsch but the cinematography is very good. The images are carefully chosen, much in the way that 1920's German expressionist films were made.  And thus the connections with George Antheil's past and his glory days in Paris and with the avant garde scene, and the film makers of that era.  How Antheil might have thrived if he'd been able to stay in Paris! On the other hand, without Antheil in Hollywood, we might not have Tom Waits, and,David Lynch and a whole host of film makers both art and schlock, ever since. 

Berliner Philharmoniker goes American Charles Ives 4

Gershwin, Antheil, Charles Ives and Bernstein - an all-American programme, but with a twist. Often programmes like this make me cringe because they're done with self-conscious folksiness. But Ingo Metzmacher conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker with wry, distinctive style. Each piece stands on its own merits; no special pleading needed. Even Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story sounds fresh, the tunes integrated into the overall musical logic. That's saying something!

If Bernstein is the over-exposed "face" of American music, George Gershwin and George Antheil don't get the respect they deserve. Gershwin's 1932 Cuban Overture isn't his greatest work but it's an attempt to use Cuban rhythms in "mainstream" music. What fun it is to see the august players of the Berliner Philharmoniker play bongos, maracas and rhythm sticks! Cuban music aficionados will probably cringe, but the point is made. Even with Gershwin, Cuban doesn't go gringo.

George Antheil's Jazz Symphony (1955 version) is musically a better proposition, and the Berliners give a vigorous account. I prefer the spikier 1925 version, (excellent recording by Ensemble Modern) but Antheil's later, larger orchestration reflects the period in which it was revived. It's apposite, however, in the context of the Bernstein suite. Even at the end of his life, after a long career in Hollywood, Antheil still understood what jazz is. The Berliners did it with style - wildly bluesy trumpet, louche piano, the orchestra deliciously decadent and witty.

Charles Ives's Symphony no 4 was by far the best part of the programme. Metzmacher appeared to be the only conductor, though a second conductor was present.  But much of the leadership came from Pierre-Laurent Aimard who has played the symphony many times. His Ives is idomatic in the sense that he's played all of Ives's music for piano, but his structural clarity doesn't go down well with those who want their Ives "traditional". Too bad, I think. Ives was writing serious music, not retro. A supremely professional exponent like Aimard would have been beyond Ives's wildest dreams.

The beauty of Ives's work, for me, is the way he blends popular culture into sophisticated music. The hymns, songs and marches  shouldn't over-dominate for they are snatches of memory in a much more complex musical conception. Aimard took control from the first bars of the Maestoso, dominant dark chords making a firm statement A single cello responds, and then the choir, singing brief snatches of the hymns whose origins Ives knew so well. Metzmacher conducted so a sense of contemplative silence prevailed, much more in keeping with the mood of the songs than the uncharacteristically muted diction of the Ernst Senff Choir.

The Allegretto is a strange beast, with multiple cross-currents. It's notoriously difficult to conduct, but Metzmacher understands 20th century music so well that he can show how Ives was way ahead of his time. Ives breaks the orchestra into components, playing at different tempi: individual cells operating within a larger mechanism. Aimard leads. playing faster and faster almost to the point that the strings can't keep up. This tension underlines the strange, mechanical repeats in the music. The filming is musically sensitive: two violinists are shown bowing in a strange mechanistic ritual.  Yet the overall impact is of extreme energy, even a sense of madcap zany rebellion in the wayward rhythms. One thinks of New York, where Ives worked, its skyscrapers (even in 1918) and busy infrastructure. Years before Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Ives is creating futurist concepts in music. 

Th offstage ensembles intensify this idea of multiple spheres of activity. A solo violin is heard from above the stage, adding ethereal unworldliness. The second piano plays a relatively easy melody. Their music feels symbolic, like a commentary on the main piano and orchestra below. Then all hell breaks loose. What sounds like a conventional miltary match  develops at a wacky, wayward pace. Most definitely not a march to march to, which may also be part of the underlying meaning.

Metzmacher breaks it off sharply, strengthening the contrast with the Fugue and its mixture of hymn melodies and memories. Is Ives looking back on an idealized past? Ives's father fought in the Civil War and played the games required of patriotic veterans, but from what we know of his life, he wasn't happy or fulfilled. Ives strongly identified wth his father, the black sheep of the family.  Can these references to nostalgia be as simple as they seem? The trombone plays a reference to "Taps", played at the close of day, but also to mark the death of soldiers.

Percussion mark the start of the Finale, suggesting a procession or march. Metzmacher and the Berliners take this so quietly that the mood seems ominous, even though the strings soar in more conventional unison. Aimard reinforces the darkness, firm, assertive playing and absolute precision. Again, Ives contrasts mass with individual. A single violin plays  a slow, gracious figure which contradicts the gloom. Mysterious swaying sounds in the main orchestra, gradually building to a strange climax and retreats. Out of this almost nothingness Aimard plays passages so beautiful that they seem magical. The hazy diction of the choir worked musically, for me, because it put greater emphasis on piano and orchestra than on the literal meaning of the words. That, perhaps, is Metzmacher's achievement. Ives's Fourth Symphony is much greater than the sum of its parts. Listen to this concert on the Berliner-Philharmoniker website.

The photo shows Charles Ives in 1945 (Eugene Smith, courtesy charlesives.org) It's famous because it shows the quirkier side of Ives. Look at that crouch - is he about to spring at the photographer and catch us all unaware? 

Multiple Pianos Prom 33 Antheil Bartok Stravinsky

Why multiple pianos ar all? Good question. This Prom demonstrated that multiple pianos are not an eccentric novelty. Pianos are percussion instruments with a huge range, which can create a more rapid sequence of sounds than some others. Multiple pianos can create intricate patterns, opening up new possibilties of textural sound.

Nor is it every day you see four pianos nose to nose! Or four pianos backed by large choir, percussion and solo singers. Prom 33 was a special occasion that won't come round too often. Not many halls can even supply four pianos, much less four with complementary tones.

George Antheil's Ballet mécanique is an icon of modernism, seminally important. Read what I've written about it and hear various clips HERE. It 's been heard at the Proms at least twice since 1995. This time we had the miniature version for four pianos, (there were six in 1999 and 2 player pianos). Even with pianists as good as John Constable, Rolf Hind, Ashley Wass and Tom Poster, this was never going to be quite as mind blowing as Ensemble Modern. No propellers or sirens, either. The sound effects came off a laptop, which is pretty basic these days. By Ballet mécanique standards this was Antheil tamed and smoothed out. It was fun anyway, but for the full experience, get the Ensemble Modern recording which has other works by Antheil whose time has not yet come but should.

Ballet mécanique is manic exuberance, but Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion is a masterpiece of sophistication. This is a four-way conversation, between two pianos and two percussionists, so keys, tones and rhythms weave maze-like complexities. Sometimes Philip Moore is dominant, but Simon Crawford-Phillips' persistence wins out. The percussion voices are naturally more varied and sometimes come close to taking over, but Colin Currie and Sam Walton are too skilled to disturb the finely poised balance. Piano/percussion quartets are never going to replace string quartets because there just isn't the repertoire, but this performance showed that the players interacted as deftly as any quartet whose members play together regularly.

There are many reasons why Ballet mécanique and Stravinsky's Les noces get programmed together. If you're hiring four pianos, you might as well use them all evening. More seriously, both operate on the principle of circulating perpetual motion. Les Noces isn't cantata, far less an opera, because the solo singers function as part of the orchestra. It's a ballet, and the dancers are the ones telling the story. The voices narrate. They aren't characters, as such.

Without dancers, the role of the singers doesn't change. What was good about this performance was that Edward Gardner didn't treat it as quasi-opera but as music that integrates soloists with choir and eight instruments, four pianos matched with four percussionists. Again the formal structure matters: folk dance is a kind of ritual. It's as if the music germinates the dance. Much can be made of the texts, but they work as part of the music, sound, the angularity of the language expressed in the blocks of sounds. Obviously meaning comes into it, but I wonder if that's over-estimated in this case, since the wedding itself is a symbolic ceremony which will continue to exist long after the protagonists are gone.

As for John Adams's Grand Pianola Music, it's hard to judge a performance of music you don't like, positive or negative. I'm hardly anti-new music but I really couldn't get this. So I'll just try to explain what I felt. It's no reflection on the performers good or bad. At first this seemed interesting, rather like the mesmerizing effects of chant, where suddenly repetition takes on a life of its own. Later, Adams starts elaborations which are quite nice but seem more like a backdrop to something else. Perhaps his operas work because they have such overwhelming themes that the music fits round them, rather like film music fits round a film. Huge, sustained applause, so probably the fault is in my ears.

George Antheil - Ballet mécanique Prom 33

George Antheil's Ballet mécanique is a spectacle. So get to Prom 33 on Sunday 9th August - this is music to watch as well as hear. Ballet mécanique is an icon. It was so visionary that it's only been in the last few years that the technology has existed to create it in "pure" performance. This involves 16 - sixteen - player pianos, propellers, sirens, percussion, xylophones, alarm bells etc and two normal pianos. It's "mechanical ballet" where machines take on the role of dancers, pushing the Rite of Spring to the nth conclusion, which is perhaps another reason it's on with Stravinsky's Les Noces.

The idea of Ballet mécanique is to depict perpetual motion, a new kind of experience of time and action. Think of Marcel Duchamp's Nude descending a staircase, where each part of the woman's body keeps vibrating.

The Proms version will probably be the one Antheil wrote in 1953 for only four pianos, but should still be impressive. It's not something that gets played too often, so do not miss the opportunity. The pianists involved include John Constable and Rolf Hind.

Alfredo Casella, whose orchestration of Balakirev's Islamey so astounded Stravinsky, featured in Prom 30 (Listen to it on rebroadcast -- it's amazing! ) was one of the Italian Futurists who wanted to create a whole new concept of aesthetics that embraced machines and urban processes, speed and energy. Look up Tomasso Marinetti, the great artist and theorist. Visit the exhibition currently on at the Tate Modern on Futurist Painting (runs to 20th September) The concept had much wider currency, influencing music and film. Fritz Lang's Metropolis is a fairy tale romance on Futurist themes. Techno Petroushka !

This is the Ferdnard Léger film made to go with the music. It's very interesting as Léger was such an influential artist. As music, though, the version by Ensemble Modern is the one to go for. Here's Part 2 of the film, followed by a clip of the premiere of the all mechanical 16 pianola version in 2006. Enjoy !