courtesy of Naxos of America
Readers that have been following this site for a few years probably know by now that the British Chandos label is in the midst of a major project to record the orchestral music of George Antheil. The orchestra for this project is the BBC Philharmonic conducted by John Storgårds. Coverage of this project began in May of 2017 following the release of an album of two of Antheil’s symphonies, the fourth (“1942”) and the fifth (“Joyous”), along with the world premiere recording of “Over the Plains,” a rather loopy concert overture with ample references to familiar tunes. Exactly a year ago today, I wrote my account of the second volume, which was organized around two more symphonies, the third (“American”) and sixth (“after Delacroix”), along with three shorter offerings.
The third album was released this past November, but it took a while for it to work its way to the head of my queue. This recording presents only one symphony, the first, which was given the subtitle “Zingareska” (gypsy-like). That subtitle is more than a little perplexing, particularly since the last of the four movements has a title of its own, which is “Ragtime.” Furthermore, the booklet notes by Mervyn Cooke observe that this movement, along with the second, seems more in the spirit of circus music, rather than that of either the jazzmen of the time (the symphony was composed between 1920 and 1922) or gypsies. Nevertheless, those familiar with Antheil’s approaches to making music will probably not be surprised by such idiosyncrasies.
The other major work on the album is the suite that Antheil extracted from the score he composed for the ballet “Capital of the World.” The ballet is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway about Paco, working as a waiter’s apprentice with aspirations of becoming a matador. He experiments with his moves by having a colleague charge him with a wooden chair, taking the upper two legs to be the horns of a bull. A cynical customer observes that the exercise would be more realistic if a pair of knives were strapped to those legs. Paco accepts the challenge, is stabbed, and dies. Hemingway’s friend A. E. Hotchner turned this story into a ballet scenario, which was then choreographed by Eugene Loring for Lucia Chase’s Ballet Theatre. It was also televised on Omnibus when I was a kid, and that was my only contact with the ballet. Sadly, neither Cooke’s booklet notes nor the track listings give much of a clue of the relationship between the music in the suite and the action of the choreography.
Once again, these lengthier offerings are complemented by shorter ones. “McKonkey’s Ferry” is named after the site on the Delaware River where General George Washington led his forces across the river, where they would attack the Hessian mercenaries garrisoned in Trenton. Antheil had a knack for vigorous rhetoric consistent with patriotic spirits, and “McKonkey’s Ferry” never lets that rhetoric descend into jingoism. “The Golden Bird” was originally composed for solo piano in 1921. It amounted to a tone poem based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Nightingale,” one of the earliest stories of a competition between real life and a mechanical simulacrum. Antheil orchestrated his score not long after completing the piano version. “Nocturne in Skyrockets” also amounts to a tone poem, based this time on images of fireworks rather than on a narrative.
Once again, Storgårds brings an informed hand to leading the BBC musicians. There is a consistently clean sense of balance across the diverse instrumental resources that Antheil’s scores require. This composer never achieved particularly adequate recognition for his orchestral music during his lifetime. (He was better known as the man who titled his autobiography The Bad Boy of Music.) Storgårds deserves credit for getting beyond provocative reputation and making a case that Antheil’s music deserves attentive listening.
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