KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ George Antheil: Bad Boy of Music: An Intermission Feature (1980)

Analog Audio

Event Type

Documentaries

Origin

KPFA

Identifier

AM.1980.11.07

Program Length

29 min

Dates

1980-11-07 | broadcast
| 402 | created

Description

Charles Amirkhanian introduces the amazing music of Trenton-born George Antheil (1900-1959). Antheil (pronounced "ANT-hile") was the first avant-garde American composer to be recognized in Europe, and composed the “Ballet Mécanique” in the mid-1920s for multiple player pianos and percussion. His life was documented in his 1945 autobiography “Bad Boy of Music”, still in print in English and German (see the webstore at Other Minds, http://www.otherminds.org for copies)

This program was produced as an intermission feature for a live San Francisco Symphony "New and Unusual Music" series broadcast on November 7, 1980. Comments by the composer himself, plus Antheil's theme music for Walter Cronkite's CBS TV series "The Twentieth Century" are included. (Antheil died prematurely at the age of 58 in New York City while working feverishly on the popular weekly series.)

Genres

New music
20th century classical

Musical Selections

[multiple brief excerpts of the “Ballet Mécanique”, “Jazz Symphony”, theme of “The Twentieth Century”, and other music by George Antheil]

Subjects

New music
20th century classical
Avant-garde (Music)
Motion picture music
Player piano music
Instrumental ensembles

Related place

San Francisco (Calif.) (was recorded at)

Related Entities

Amirkhanian, Charles
Antheil, George, 1900-1959
Leeuw, Reinbert de, 1938-