Ballet Mécanique
The Ballet Mécanique ( Ballet pour Instruments Mécaniques et Percussion ) by the American composer George Antheil is considered one of the key works of the early 20th century, divided the music world and led to the greatest scandals in music history.
prehistory
George Antheil knew the pianola even before his stay in Paris (1923) - contrary to all previous assumptions . Around 1985 the Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin discovered a punched tape with a composition by Antheil - Mécanique No.1 - which is not listed in any catalog raisonné and which can be assigned to the genre of machine music: machine-like pounding chords are overlaid at a flea market in the USA an ever faster running gear train. There is a high probability that it is a fragment. The dating (1920) suggests that it is Antheil's first composition for self-playing piano . The musical material was later used in the second movement "Snakes" of his piano sonata Sonata Sauvage (1922/23).
When Antheil and his wife Böski arrived in Paris on June 13, 1923, where the couple was to stay for several years, they attended a Stravinsky concert in the evening . a. Les Noces was performed. Stravinsky originally planned several mechanical musical instruments for this composition, including a pianola. However, problems with the synchronization led him to forego this instrumentation. Antheil and his wife visited Stravinsky the next day in the rooms of the piano factory Pleyel , which not only made pianos but also pianolas ( pleyela ) and which Stravinsky provided for several years in a studio in which he arranged his ballet music for pianola. Stravinsky played the piano version of Les Noces for his guests , and Antheil was enthusiastic: “I liked this version even better than the one we had heard the night before. It was more precise, cooler, harder, more typical of what I wanted to get out of the music myself at that time. "
Antheil had probably started the composition, which would later become the Ballet Mécanique , as early as 1922 in Berlin, under the title Message to Mars . The use of pianolas is likely to have been inspired decisively by Stravinsky's performance. Soon afterwards the idea arose to use this work as music to accompany an abstract film. Ezra Pound , with whom Antheil had a close friendship, was enthusiastic about this idea, and he was able to interest the American cameramen Dudley Murphy and Man Ray as well as the painter Fernand Léger in this project. The statements about how this film actually came about are so contradicting that the story of how it was made can no longer be traced. In any case, the first surrealist - Dadaist film was made, but insurmountable problems with the synchronization of film and music soon led to the end of the collaboration and two independent works of art were created. The film was finished first and premiered on September 4, 1924 at the International Exhibition for Theater Technology in Vienna. In his autobiography Antheil writes: “My Ballet Mécanique had already had a number of semi-private premieres, some with Jacques Benoist-Méchin , others with the film by Léger and Murphy; the latter, however, remained an attempt, as we never succeeded in synchronizing the film with the music to some extent. ”The film obtained has a playing time of 18 minutes, the music lasts about 28 minutes. There is a theory that the original form of the film contained nude scenes that were later censored. This would explain the serious difference in the duration of the film and the music.
Scores and punched tape
First version for four pianos
Two scores of the Ballet Mécanique have survived from the 1920s : The first version Ballet Mécanique, dated 1924 to 1925, with the dedication “for my best of friends Jack Benoist-Méchin ” is limited to four piano parts, most of which were misinterpreted as piano parts. These voices are by all means 'pianistic' and - if one disregards the high speeds - do not show any 'technical fingering impossibilities', as are usual in original compositions for pianola. In arranging the notes and distributing them to the systems, Antheil always considered the possibilities of one (or more) pianists. So z. B. chromatic glissandi, which could be easily performed by a pianola, divided into black key and white key glissandi, which are distributed among four 'pianists'. The same - for a pianola, meaningless - division into different systems (hands) can also be found in chromatic clusters - here there are even information on how pianists should play them (e.g. with the forearm). Frenzied tone cascades are always set in such a way that they are 'in the hands' of a pianist (and Antheil was considered an outstanding pianist). This shows that Antheil never had the possibilities of a pianola in mind when composing, but only those of a pianist. This shows that this composition was originally conceived for four pianists and was transferred to the pianola without any significant changes. This version served both as the basis for the punched tapes ( piano rolls ) and for the second version Ballet pour Instruments Mécaniques et Percussion with additional instruments.
Second version with 16 pianolas
The second score , entitled Ballet pour Instruments Mécaniques et Percussion, contains the four piano parts , which are now clearly assigned to pianolas 1 to 4, two further piano parts for pianists, three xylophones , four bass drums, tam-tam , electric bells, three different propellers and a siren. Antheil, however, envisioned a four-fold occupation of the piano parts, so that a total of 16 pianolas in groups of four should be controlled by a seventeenth pianola. Although the Pleyel company had a patent (No. 207 798 from Nov. 1922) for the synchronous control of pianolas, the synchronization was unsatisfactory, so that only one pianola could be used for performances at that time. Antheil (1926) also had perforated strips punched from this version, on which the additional instruments were also taken into account.
Third version without pianolas
In 1953 he reworked the work, making radical changes and shortening it by more than half. He did without the pianola, deleted entire scenes and shortened annoying repetitions and extreme periods of silence. This version, most frequently performed today, is only a shadow of the once powerful, innovative, provocative form for pianola.
The punched tape (piano rolls)
When producing a punched tape , all the desired parts of a score are transferred to a punched tape and then punched. Part marked z. B. Notes that should not be punched - "these notes remain only for the 8-hand-four-piano arrangement". This can also be taken as an indication that Antheil originally conceived the work for four pianists. Since a punched tape can record a maximum of twelve minutes of music, the composition had to be divided into three punched tapes because of its length of almost 30 minutes. Antheil gave precise instructions for the production of the punched tape by the Pleyel company .
Antheil remarked in December 1925 in a 'Foreword' to the punched tape: The first edition was limited to 20 copies. These are only the parts of the 16 pianolas, excluding the xylophone, drums and other percussion instruments that are in the score . It is the mother roles who control the 16 pianolas from a control instrument and switch them on or 16 instruments depending on the volume. These roles were only intended for musicians because only they could understand the importance of long pauses and repetitions as 'accompaniment' for the drums that are not punched on the roll. This edition is the "Orchestra Piano Edition" and it was punched in July / August 1925 at Pleyel. A second edition of 400 rolls, which was to be punched in January 1926, contained the piano parts as well as the parts of the percussion instruments. This version was not intended for public performances, only for private use. There are also detailed punching instructions by Antheil to Pleyel . The scrolls are now in the Curtis Institute Library . Obviously, rolls were never punched that contain the individual parts of the pianolas.
The work
The Pianola is the solo voice, the heartbeat of Ballet Mécanique , Antheil wrote to his friend Ezra Pound. At the center of Antheil's Ballet pour Instruments Mécaniques et Percussion is the player piano (pianola), as it were, as a "soloist" , which is used neither as a melody nor as a harmony instrument, but primarily percussive. Hard dissonances, extensive clusters, chord clusters with over 30 notes struck simultaneously, about 600 time changes in 1240 bars and ragtime-like sequences underline the machine aesthetics .
What is new are the permanent repetitions of a short rhythmically structured cluster phrase over 180 bars (in over two and a half minutes), frenzied tone cascades with 200 tones per second and periods of silence lasting up to 20 seconds, which are here for the first time - and thus almost half a century before John Cage - used as an integral part of a composition.
Antheil often commented on his Ballet Mécanique , although his statements were often contradictory. The statements in his autobiography " Bad Boy of Music " must also be viewed with great caution , since fantasy, poetry and truth are often indistinguishably close together.
So he writes there z. For example: “In the winter of 1923/24 I spent most of my time composing the Ballet Mécanique… The work was finished before 1925 and concluded an epoch of my work and my life. Because when the ballet was written, I felt that I had finally said everything I had to say in this strange, cold, dreamlike and ultraviolet-lit medium ... The Ballet Mécanique followed exactly that “dream”; it had nothing to do with the representation of factories and machine systems ... However, at that time I found machines very beautiful, but I had no intention of copying a machine directly with the music, as Honegger and Mossolow did, for example . Rather, my intention was to make both the beauty and the danger of its unconscious mechanical philosophy and aesthetics clear to the age I lived in ... As I look at it, my Ballet Mécanique (played properly!) Was streamlined, glittering, cold and frequent just as filled with "musical silence" like the interplanetary space and as often as hot as an electric furnace ... "
Antheil also commented on the periods of silence: "Here at the end of this composition, where no single note can be heard for a long period of time, time itself acts as music ... here I moved time without touching it ... I used time how Picasso may have used the empty spaces on his canvas. For example, I did not hesitate to repeat a measure 100 times; I did not hesitate to have nothing on the piano roll for 62 measures ... "(here 64 measures are meant Eighth notes).
Elsewhere Antheil wrote: "When I used the mechanical possibilities of the instruments in my Ballet Mécanique, I was able to achieve rhythm effects that human beings can hardly count and execute at the same time, not to mention the unique possibility of chords, arpeggios and to write other figures for the mechanical piano that the human hand cannot perform - no matter how many hands you distribute the notes (This does not correspond to the facts, since the piece was originally written for pianists and also practical in the later version always considering the possibilities of a pianist). I sought to find out the beauties that slumbered in the clear and clean purity of mechanical music machines, especially the pianola. I sought the very precise grace and machine gun rate of fire that only they are able to exploit; ... I tried , the slumbering beauties of Pianolas and the other machines I use. (Elsewhere, see above, however, he wrote: ... it had nothing to do with the representation of factories and machinery ...) I used their "defects" as their most characteristic features. "
In 1925 he wrote: "My Ballet Mécanique is the new fourth dimension of music ... the first piece of music in the world from and for machines ... the first composition in the world that is designed as a continuous piece, without interruption, like a solid steel beam." Remarkable It remains that Antheil does not mention the pianola in his autobiography when describing the performances of the Ballet Mécanique .
The performances
The performances until 2002
Between 1925 and 1928 there were only six performances in different formations, none of them with the originally planned 16 pianolas. Only with the development of computer technology was it possible to control several modified pianolas with MIDI data and to synchronize them exactly. This led to a renaissance in performance practice. In 1996, the player piano specialist Jürgen Hocker realized a performance for the first time with two precisely synchronized automatic grand pianos, each taking over two piano voices. In 2002, on the occasion of the Ruhr Piano Festival, a performance with 16 acoustic self-playing pianos was performed for the first time. From 1999 Paul Lehrman realized many performances in the USA with several electronic and later also with acoustic pianos.
First performance at Maison Pleyel
September 16, 1925: First private performance in the version with a pianola in the Maison Pleyel under the direction of Bravig Imbs, in the absence of Antheil. The pianola (Pleyela) was operated by a Pleyel employee. The performance in which u. a. James Joyce , Jacques Benoist-Méchin, Sylvia Beach and several critics in attendance became a great success. This is how Bravig Imbs describes his impressions: “The ballet was so intense and concentrated, so strange and irritating to the ear that a sigh of relief could be heard when the first role ended abruptly. Then you heard that strange, unsightly fluttering sound as the reel rewinded quickly, and when the second reel was put in, those present changed their postures and tensed as if they were entering a long, dangerous tunnel. But now the amiable side of Antheil showed itself, and without blurring the impetuosity of the first tumult the music became richer, less cutting, with a series of lyrical passages. Nevertheless, the sound combinations and the cadences were so fresh that the new impressions were both tiring and very exciting. The third role was graciously short and quick, a brilliant concentration of sound that moved as close as possible to the chaos and yet remained music. I was thrilled and felt so wonderfully exhausted, and she [obviously referring to the Pleyel employee who probably kicked the pianola] rewarded me with a weak smile. I believe these three roles to play was like three miles to go. "Antheil, who was at that time in Tunis, had previously devised together with Imbs a 'history' to its popularity and interest in the Ballet Mécanique to Increase: While Antheil was absent, Imbs published a newspaper article in the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune, in which it was stated that Antheil was lost in the desert and possibly eaten by lions.
Performance at the Théatre des Champs Elysées
June 19, 1926: Public performance at the Champs Elysées Théatre under Vladimir Golschmann . All attempts to synchronize sixteen pianolas via a central pianola failed. That is why Antheil only used one pianola, which was operated by Jacques Bénoist-Méchin, Antheil's patron and dedicatee to the first version. (According to another source, Antheil operated the pianola.) Antheil wrote to Mrs. Bok, who supported him financially for a long time: “... this is a much more practical version, with a reinforced pianola, only three xylophones and a correspondingly reduced drum kit, so that the cost of this much-described piece is lower than the expensive first and larger arrangement. ”The 2500-seat theater was sold out. The audience included Ezra Pound , TS Eliot , James Joyce , Darius Milhaud , Nadia Boulanger , Marcel Duchamp , Sergej Diaghilev , Constantin Brancusi , Alfred Knopf and Kussewitzki . The concert became both a scandal (the biggest since Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps ) and a great success; Antheil suddenly became one of the most discussed and best-known composers in Paris in the early twenties.
The composer and pianist Aaron Copland wrote to his friend Israel Citkowitz : “The performance took place in a beautiful theater on the Champs-Elysées with more than 2000 visitors, each one of them in great excitement and full of anticipation, for the first time in the world To hear a program that brings - oh wonder of wonder - the music of your only true rival - George Antheil! who managed to overshadow the “Sacre” with the help of a pleyela… I seriously repeat my unwavering conviction - the boy is a genius. ” Hugh Ford describes the chaotic events during the event:“ When the pianists found themselves in the Having sat in the middle of the stage on their grand piano, the audience was already in an uproar. The turmoil subsided when George appeared and sat down at the mechanical piano, from which he controlled a collection of fans, propellers, xylophones, and other pieces of heavy-sounding metal. Suddenly the first clap of the music exploded - a terrible roar of drums - followed by a jumble of harsh and jarring rhythms. Since many visitors were prepared to be stunned by the enormous mass of sound, the loudest parts were the most popular. Whenever the momentum dropped to a mezzoforte and the rhythm came to the fore, the crowd whistled, clapped and stamped their feet. Halfway through the play, the audience split into two opposing camps. One, leaderless, feared that his hearing would be permanently damaged; the other, organized, influenced and led by Ezra Pound , answered every expression of displeasure, every hiss, boo, whistle and hoot with loud cheers, wild applause and sneering and mocking remarks; and Ezra Pound leaked "terrible French expressions." Meanwhile, the "ballet" went on, making it impossible to distinguish which sounds came from the musicians and which from the audience. Quarrels broke out in the orchestra; the opponents jumped to their feet, took off their jackets and pushed into the corridors. Determined to act, Pound climbed quickly and ruthlessly from gallery to gallery, stepping on hands and heads that were in the way, ending up in the midst of the tumult, letting the "simple language of displeasure" run free and shouting in a mixed French and American accent: “Silence Imbeciles!” What else he said could not be heard, because once the Ballet Mécanique started, like a machine in a Chaplin film, it could not be stopped. Golschmann gave a sign to put the propellers into action. A loud whirring noise filled the theater. Coat collars were raised, umbrellas opened. William L. Shirer and Stuart Gilbert watched with alarm as the fierce stream of air caught the wig of a stout man in the front row and set it gently and undamaged in the back row of the theater. It was music that you could both feel and hear. Then it ended suddenly, as trembling as it had started. Applause drowned out the last traces of protest and it lasted long and loud enough to call Antheil onto the stage for numerous bows. "
Performance in the house of Mrs. Gross
On July 16, 1926 , a semi-public performance took place in the house of Mrs. Gross, the wife of an American diplomat, also under the direction of Vladimir Golschmann. It was probably a version for eight pianists without a pianola. Antheil writes in his autobiography "Bad Boy of Music": "As I recall today, the big house was not only filled with white-gloved servants, guests, food and wonderful champagne, but also with concert grand pianos: the grand pianos literally hung from the ceiling . The Ballet Mécanique is instrumented for eight pianos - not to mention the xylophones, the drums and everything else, even if there were twice as many instruments later in Carnegie Hall . With such an orchestra there was of course hardly any room for the guests - that was an oversight on our part. The eight wings completely filled the huge living space and didn't leave a thumb's breadth. Therefore xylophones and other percussion instruments were set up in the next room and on the enormous staircase. Vladimir Golschmann, who conducted, stood on the middle wing. And now imagine two hundred more guests in this absolutely overcrowded house! In every hole and corner between the wings stood a guest. I think several even hung on the chandeliers - including in all likelihood the Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre; she was such an art enthusiast! Oh, and what's more, it was summer and extremely hot. In short, by the time we were ready to finally begin, almost every resident of Paris had apparently come into the house through the chimney, waited and was now sweating in the confines. With the first chord of the Ballet Mécanique, the roof almost blew off the house! And in the gigantic shock, a number of people fell over! The other guests writhed like live sardines in a can; the pianos below, above and next to her ears boomed mightily in a strange synchronization. At the end of this extremely sweaty concert, champagne was served in large quantities; the people were very thirsty, not to say: shaken and shattered. "
Performance and scandal at Carnegie Hall in New York
April 10, 1927 , New York, Carnegie Hall : performance with an electric piano, ten grand pianos, six xylophones, two large drums, an airplane propeller (wind machine), bell and siren, conducted by Eugene Goossens . This event became a 'Waterloo' for Antheil, one of the greatest scandals in music history. Mainly responsible for the failure was the concert manager Donald Friede , who staged an inept public relations campaign by announcing the first appearance of Antheil in the USA with great exaggeration as a sensation: He referred to allegedly scandalous performances in Paris and announced the event as " ... Biggest Musical Event of the Year! " and Antheil as "… Sensational American modernist composer". In addition, there were specially made, provocatively shrill curtains in the background of the stage and the fact that ten Baldwin grand pianos - which were played by ten pianists, including Aaron Copland - reminded more of a Baldwin sales show than a concert. Antheil himself said: “Now imagine the doubled number of pianos, the fantastically tasteless curtain and the airplane propeller! That evening we really did a circus in three rings - both visually and acoustically! ”The performance, in which Antheil played a Welte Mignon self -playing piano , turned out to be a complete fiasco, both financially and musically.
A few headlines in reviews describe the disaster: “Antheil's Ballet of Machines received boos - forty million French people MAY be wrong! - Antheil's art unleashes itself on frightened ears - Antheil's concert causes a stir, mixed with boredom, but no riot. "
In the 'Times' in Toledo / Ohio one could read: "I have to admit, I found Antheil's famous Ballet Mécanique pretty stupid, even if it was terribly noisy ... For me the ballet is a simple-minded and artless composition."
The judgment in 'The New Yorker' was similarly negative: “Speed and mechanics were there, but beauty had not yet set in when the work ended. It was a harmless mixture of uneven timings and clusters of notes ...... Mr. Antheil seems to understand something of compositional technique, but his ideas are poor ... the current works of the amiable young man from Trenton are extremely infantile. ”Deeply disappointed and without money, Antheil returned to Paris back.
Performances in 1927/28
July 16, 1927: Performance of the first (of three) piano roll (s) on the occasion of the German Chamber Music event in Baden-Baden (in addition to works for self-playing piano by Lopatnikoff , Haass , Toch and Hindemith ).
April 8, 1928: Performed in Philadelphia under Leopold Stokowski . (No details available.)
Renaissance from 1983
After the composition had been forgotten for over fifty years, - u. a. with the 'discovery' of Nancarrow - again interest in player pianos and at the beginning of the eighties they began to deal again with the Ballet Mécanique.
February 4, 1983: Performance as part of a public concert of the Cologne University of Music in the large concert hall in the version for four pianos and percussions. The four pianists on four Steinway concert grand pianos: Jimin Oh, Patricia Arrenas, Richard Braun and Joseph Hölderle. The 13 percussionists: Prof. Christoph Caskel's drum class . Conductor: Ingo Metzmacher . (Recording in private ownership)
October 16, 1983: Performance as part of a concert by the Society for Free Artistic Initiatives (GfkI) in the large concert hall of the University of Music in Cologne in the version for four pianos and percussions. The four pianists on four Steinway concert grand pianos: Akemi Hashimoto, David Guerin, Richard Braun and Joseph Hölderle. The 13 percussionists: Prof. Christoph Caskel's drum class . Conductor: Ingo Metzmacher . (Recording by the organizer, today in private ownership).
July 12, 1989: Performance at Carnegie Hall under Maurice Peress with Rex Lawson on a piano advance and eight pianists. Since the composition is divided into three piano rolls, the performance had to be interrupted twice so that the roll could be rewound and a new one inserted.
March 2, 1991: Performance of the second version in Stockholm. Anders Wahlgren 'played' the piano part - similar to Lawson two years earlier - on an instrument operated by pedals. To avoid interruptions from rewinding the rolls, he alternately operated two pianolas. Since the original rolls were unsatisfactory, piano roll arranger Douglas Henderson created new rolls for this event.
June 4, 1996: Performance of the second version by Jürgen Hocker on the occasion of 50 years of Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden under Franz Lang. The music electronics technician Horst Mohr 'read' the note information from a pleyela strip and converted it into MIDI data and arranged it for two computer-controllable Ampico pianos by Jürgen Hocker . (The computer control of the instruments was developed by Walter Tenten and Horst Mohr.) This made it possible for the first time to precisely synchronize several self-playing pianos. Two ampico grand pianos were used in the performance. This version was repeated on June 5, 1996 in Freiburg, on June 6, 1996 in Neuf Brisac, on April 5, 1998 in Munich and on June 26, 1998 in Völklingen.
May 10, 1999: First concert on a European tour with the Ensemble Modern under the direction of Peter Rundel . The second version of the Ballet Mécanique was performed with two synchronized automatic grand pianos. The instruments were controlled by an exact midi file that was created from the score by Werner Funk and arranged for several instruments by Jürgen Hocker. In addition to the drum orchestra, propellers, bells and a siren, six 'live pianists' played. The concert was repeated on May 10th in Vienna, on May 14th in Cologne, on May 16th in Frankfurt, on May 18th in Berlin and on May 21st in London.
November 18, 1999: Performance of the second version at the University of Massachusetts Lowell under Jeffrey Fischer. For the first time, 16 'pianolas' were to be used. In addition to acoustic Yamaha disklavings , 'electronic' keyboards were also used. Planning and execution was in the hands of Paul Lehrman, who, on behalf of G.Schirmer Musikverlag, created the MIDI file from the score again. The new version was repeated (with changes in the acoustic / electronic pianos) on April 2, 2000 in Carnegie Hall, New York (under Dennis Russell Davies ) and on June 11, 2000 in San Francisco (under Michael Tilson Thomas). Several performances followed with different casts.
May 5, 2002, Maastricht: Performance of the second version in an arrangement for two synchronized automatic grand pianos (analogous to the arrangement for Ensemble Modern) under René Gulikers.
August 17, 2002 , Essen, Ruhr Piano Festival: Performance as part of the final concert of the piano festival with two Ampicos self-playing grand pianos and fourteen Yamaha disklavers in the arrangement of stools. First performance without electronically generated sounds. Different MIDI files had to be created for the different types of Disklavier as well as for the Ampico instruments.
To performance practice
Possibilities and limits of the pianolas
The focus of the Ballet pour Instruments Mécaniques et Percussion are the pianolas. In addition to the drums, the effects and two piano parts, Antheil noted four piano parts. A closer examination of the piano parts and a comparison with the first version of the Ballet Mécanique showed that the piano parts are actually four piano parts for pianists. For this reason, the distribution over four pianolas, as indicated in the score, makes little sense. For a pianola to achieve maximum volume and presence, it is necessary to optimally distribute the tones in the bass and treble range. (This is a consequence of the split wind chest in self-playing pianos.) Antheil, on the other hand, mostly only uses the bass range on one pianola, and only the treble range on the other. Antheil did not take into account another characteristic of the pianolas: Usually the sound is louder, the more notes sound at the same time. This also applies to the pianola for aggregates up to around 15 tones. However, if more tones are struck at the same time, the negative pressure and thus the force of the strike decreases because the vacuum pump reaches the limit of its capacity: The sound aggregates and clusters become quieter again with an increasing number of tones.
Performances with two synchronized automatic grand pianos
For the performance in 1996, the two synchronizable automatic playing pianos by Jürgen Hocker and a punched tape from the Pleyel company were available on which the notes of all four pianolas were summarized. The punched tape was read in as a MIDI file with a punched tape reader and the voices were distributed between the two instruments in such a way that all notes were struck precisely and a sufficient volume could be achieved. However, this version lacked the exact rhythm and the necessary mechanical precision. In 1999, an exact MIDI file was created based on Antheil's score and the parts were distributed over two automatic playing pianos.
During the performance in 2002, the question arose of the distribution of the four piano voices among the 16 'pianolas'. According to Antheil, the instruments should be divided into groups of four pianolas each, which each played together. The division according to the four piano systems of the score did not make sense, however: with a total length of 1240 bars, only 34 bars (less than 3%) were notated with four different systems and only approx. 270 bars (approx. 22%) with three different systems , d. H. half of the instruments would have been used very rarely. In the present version, the distribution of the voices focused on the possibilities of the player pianos and disklaviers as well as the greatest possible presence of the music, whereby Antheil's intentions were of course taken into account.
To the tempo question
There are several contradicting statements about the speed: In a preliminary Schirmer edition there is the statement quarter = 75. In Antheil's comments for the Pleyela roll it says: 'Speed 85'. In both cases it is not a question of a metronome , but the speed of the piano roll. Elsewhere, Antheil notes: MM Viertel = 152. However, neither the musicians nor the pianolas can maintain this extremely high speed through the entire composition. The score Ballet Mécanique , revised by Antheil in 1953 , in which the pianola is dispensed with but the same thematic material is used, contains the indication Allegro (ferocé) quarter = 144-160. A look at the earlier score shows that it makes little sense to perform the entire composition at the same tempo, especially because at one point the 'theme' appears at double the tempo (thirty-second notes instead of eighth notes). If this point remains playable, one would have to start extremely slowly, which would contradict the character of the composition. Musically it makes sense to start with a fairly rapid tempo (quarter = 132) and reduce it in several places.
On the question of dynamics
Questions also arise with regard to the dynamics : the often held view that the piece must be played in a continuous forte needs to be revised, as it is probably due to the fact that dynamic differentiation on one or even several pianolas did not seem possible. The score of the first version shows occasional information on dynamics up to fffff including crescendos and pedal information. In the piano version, dynamics and pedal indications are dispensed with, but it contains many accent marks. The additional dynamics result intuitively for the musicians and should also be taken into account with the pianolas. So z. For example, the 'live pianists' only enforce acoustically when the volume of the pianolas is drastically reduced in the appropriate places. There are also reports that Antheil, who played the pianola himself during some performances, changed both the tempo and the dynamics. Antheil's handwritten notes such as: "slower here", "louder, pause" or "bass pedal" can be found on a piano roll. In addition, the 16 pianolas should be switched depending on the desired 'volume' ("... switching on 16 or 1, as might be necessary to the sonority"). Although the 16-pianola version could not be performed at the time of its creation due to synchronization problems, this is a clear indication that Antheil did not want a consistent volume.
Although the Ballet Mécanique was created before 1924, it wasn't until 1990 that people began to seriously consider the music and the possibilities for performance. Even if Antheil did not attain the importance of Stravinsky , the Ballet Mécanique can still be regarded as a key work , as one of the most innovative, powerful and provocative compositions of the early 20th century.
literature
- Julia Schmidt-Pirro: George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique . European University Theses Vol. 204, Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1999.
- George Antheil: Bad Boy of Music . German by Jutta and Theodor Knust. Edited and provided with a prelude and an alphabet of shares by Rainer Peters and Harry Vogt. European Publishing House / Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg 2000.
- Rex Lawson: George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique . In: The Pianola Journal No.9 - The Journal of the Pianola-Institute, pp. 9-14, 1996.
- Jürgen Hocker: Program for the performance of the Ballet Mécanique on the occasion of the Ruhr Piano Festival on August 17, 2002, Zeche Zollverein, Essen.
- Jürgen Hocker: George Antheil - Ballet Mécanique (Ballet pour Instruments Mécaniques et Percussion) . In: The Mechanical Musical Instrument, Journal of the Society for Self-Playing Musical Instruments No. 85, pp. 28–38, 2002. (online: part 1 , part 2 , part 3 )
- Paul D. Lehrman: The History and Technology of Ballet Mécanique - A dissertation . Tufts University, August 2010.
Web links
- Antheil website, maintained by Paul Lehrman
- Website of the American researcher Paul Lehrman
- Website of Jürgen Hocker with detailed information on player pianos (pianolas)
- Attempt to synchronize Antheil's Ballet Mécanique with the film by Fernand Leger, part 1
- The punched tape of the Ballet Mécanique , part 1
- The punched tape of the Ballet Mécanique , part 2
- Photo of the Zeche Zollverein performance on August 17, 2002 by Klaus Rudolph
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Journal" and program leaflet of the Cologne University of Music 1983 / press concert announcements program booklet / publisher: Society of free artistic initiatives (GfkI), Cologne-Bonn
- ↑ Brochure “Jubläum 1987”, publisher: Society of Free Artistic Initiatives (GfkI), Cologne-Bonn