George Antheil’s flamboyant personality often overshadowed actual facts about his life. According to his autobiography Bad Boy of Music, Antheil was blessed with succès de scandale at every performance of his music. Other documents, however, tell a different story about this «bad boy» and his controversial music for Fernand Léger’s film Le ballet mécanique (1924). The following paper seeks a factual approach to the aesthetic purposes of Antheil’s composition, based on a musical manuscript, letters and other documents (preserved at the New York Public Library) as well as newspaper articles from the late 1920s. In particular, the relationship between Antheil’s music and Léger’s images will be discussed, according to the documents and to the social/cultural context Antheil was trying to fit in.
Messages to Mars. New Perspectives on George Antheil’s Music for Le Ballet Mécanique
Marco Bellano
2017
Abstract
George Antheil’s flamboyant personality often overshadowed actual facts about his life. According to his autobiography Bad Boy of Music, Antheil was blessed with succès de scandale at every performance of his music. Other documents, however, tell a different story about this «bad boy» and his controversial music for Fernand Léger’s film Le ballet mécanique (1924). The following paper seeks a factual approach to the aesthetic purposes of Antheil’s composition, based on a musical manuscript, letters and other documents (preserved at the New York Public Library) as well as newspaper articles from the late 1920s. In particular, the relationship between Antheil’s music and Léger’s images will be discussed, according to the documents and to the social/cultural context Antheil was trying to fit in.
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