George Antheil: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 6, Etc.
Chandos

It's safe to say most listeners think of Ballet Mécanique when they hear the name George Antheil. Yet while it is his best-known work, it's hardly the only one deserving of attention. With the release of not one but now two volumes featuring orchestral pieces by the American composer, Chandos is doing its part to keep the Antheil flame burning. His third and sixth symphonies are performed by the BBC Philharmonic and conductor John Storgård on this latest collection, which follows an earlier one featuring the fourth and fifth.

Antheil's (1900-1959) life reads somewhat like a history of early twentieth-century culture. Though New Jersey-born, he was in Europe in the early ‘20s, living above Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris and fraternizing with figures such as Joyce, Picasso, Satie, and Stravinsky. After a brief Berlin stay, Antheil made his way back to America in 1933 where he lived in Hollywood until his death. This self-proclaimed ‘Bad Boy of Music' (the title of his autobiography, no less) wrote over 300 works and, more than willing to embrace the role of provocateur, wove many unusual sound elements and instrument combinations into his material. To illustrate, Ballet Mécanique was in its originally conceived form scored for sixteen synchronized player pianos, two grand pianos, electronic bells, xylophones, bass drums, a siren, and three airplane propellers, though adjustments had to be made when the arrangement proved unfeasible. The official Paris premiere in 1926 went pretty much the way one might expect: protests by some outraged listeners were drowned out by the music, and a riot in the streets followed the concert's end. In a scaled-down version, the work had its American debut in 1927 at Carnegie Hall and received a critical reception so brutal (one critic apparently deeming it “boring, artless, and naive”) it left a permanent mark on the composer.

Any listener coming to his symphonies will encounter material far less outrageous than Ballet Mécanique; in fact, the tonal material on this Chandos release reflects the composer's desire to create music that would more court listeners than drive them away. Born out of a desire to acquire a rather orthodox compositional style, he absorbed works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, and Sibelius, and their influence can at times be felt in the pieces presented on this sixty-seven-minute volume. In his liner notes, Mervyn Cooke argues for the influence of Darius Milhaud's Brazilian-inspired music, for instance, on Archipelago (Rhumba) (1935); be that as it may, there's no denying the six-minute setting's charm and effusive high spirits, not to mention its effectiveness as a rather Copland-esque curtain-raiser. The good times continue in 1948's Hot-Time Dance, a rollicking and orchestrally rich four-minute ride.

Though one might expect things to turn solemn for the Symphony No. 3 ‘American' (completed 1946), it exudes optimism, too; that's as it should be, however, given that Antheil designed it as a hopeful portrait of his native country and its future (sadly, only one movement, its third, was performed during his lifetime). While that feeling's most conspicuously conveyed by the energized “Allegro,” the graceful “Andante” communicates it, too, if more gently and soberly by comparison. The twenty-five-minute performance's rounded out by the jubilant third movement, its “The Golden Spike” title a reference to the piece of metal that completed the tracks for the USA's first continental railroad in 1869, and an also-lively and percussion-driven finale, “Back to Baltimore.”

Of the two symphonies, it's the sixth that's the more sober. Completed in 1950, the three-movement work opens with a first movement inspired by Delacroix's 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People (hence the ‘after Delacroix' included in the symphony title); the composer himself wrote that he aimed to capture in the music emotions engendered by “the smoke of battle, courage, despair, and hope, all moving into the future.” Many a commentator has noted a strong Shostakovich presence in the work, and it's certainly evident in the opening part's militant rhythms and the agitation of the strings, horns, and percussion (the snippets of patriotic songs such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” that find their way into the material, on the hand, suggest an Ives influence); the ponderous “Larghetto” likewise doesn't sound worlds removed from a typical slow movement by the Russian composer. Speaking of influences, it's hard not to think of Ravel and his La Valse while listening to Antheil's Specter of the Rose Waltz (a 1947 re-orchestration of music from a film score) when its melodies and harmonic opulence warrant the comparison.

March 2019