Today is the birthday of original Trenton cracker George Antheil (1900-1959), self-proclaimed “Bad Boy of Music.” Antheil’s “Ballet Mécanique,” scored for player pianos, airplane propellers, siren and electric bells, inspired one of classical music’s great riots at its Paris premiere in 1926.
Antheil would practice the piano with such ferocity that he would have to pause periodically to thrust his hands into two fish bowls filled with ice water. During his recitals, he would ostentatiously remove a pistol from a silk holster sewn into his jacket and place it atop the piano in full view of the audience to let them know that he would brook no nonsense.
Later, he became a Hollywood film composer, a war correspondent, the author of a column of advice to the lovelorn, an expert in endocrinology, and co-inventor, with actress Heddy Lamarr, of a frequency-hopping system for the guidance of Allied torpedoes that would become the basis for today’s communications technologies.
Happy birthday to Trenton’s prodigal son.
The “Ballet Mécanique:”
This manically edited version makes ME want to riot!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58H0hC96zDg
PHOTO: Bad Boy in the 1920s