Classical: DCCXXIII. ANTHEIL, George: Ballet Mécanique

DCCXXIII. ANTHEIL, George (1900-1959)

Ballet Mécanique (1925-26)
Philadelphia Percussion + Piano Project
Phillip O'Banion, cond.
(15:24)

Grew up in Trenton, NJ. Flunked out of high school in 1918.
He was so crazy about music that his mother sent him to the countryside where no pianos were available. George found a local music store that delivered a piano to him.
In the early 20's, his first teacher -- Constantine von Sternberg -- introduced him to Louise Curtis Bok (founder of Curtis Institute), who gave Antheil a monthly stipend of $150.
He married Boski Markus -- a Hungarian and niece of the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler -- in 1925.
They lived in Paris, above Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company. She introduced George to Satie, Ezra Pound, Joyce, Virgil Thomson and Hemingway. Pound introduced him to Cocteau, and his name and revolutionary music became known in the French capital.
Antheil described the Ballet Mécanique:

"scored for countless number of player pianos. All percussive. Like machines. All efficiency. No LOVE. Written without sympathy. Written cold as an army operates. Revolutionary as nothing has been revolutionary."

Originally conceived as a ballet to be accompanied by a film by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, with cinematography by Man Ray:

In 1936, he went to Hollywood, where he wrote over 30 scores for such directors as Cecil B. DeMille and Nicholas Ray.
He described most film scores as "unmitigated tripe."
Scored Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950) with Bogart.
Confident in his ability to "save" a weak film, staged:

Wrote a novel in 1930 (as "Stacey Bishop") -- a murder mystery called Death in the Dark with a character based on Pound
Was a key figure in the pre-war Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, putting on exhibits of artwork banned in Nazi Germany, such as Käthe Kollwitz.
Wrote a book The Shape of the War to Come where he predicted virtually everything that would come to pass.
Was an expert on female endocrinology.
Hedy Lamarr came to him for advice on how she might -- er -- "enhance her upper torso." Their discussion eventually moved on to the subject of torpedoes:

During the war, Lamarr realized that a single radio-controlled torpedo could easily be detected and jammed.
Antheil and Lamarr developed the idea of using frequency hopping: by using a player piano roll to randomly change the signal sent between the control center and the torpedo at short burst within a range of 88 frequences (the keys of a piano). This basically encrypted the signal.

The Navy was too dumb to realize the possibilities, and it wasn't implemented until 1962.
It wasn't until 1997, when Lamarr was given a belated award for her contributions.
Their invention shares some concepts with modern spread-spectrum tech such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi connections, etc.

Classical