This is an online only review - no other format is available.
Permission is granted to print and distribute this review in any format.

Bad Boy not so "bad"
Antheil sans mechanique
Friday, October 7, 2205
By Reena Esmail

The Philadelphia Virtuosi, Daniel Spalding (conductor), Guy Livingston (piano). Music of George Antheil. The Miller Theater, Columbia Univeristy, New York City.

The Philadelphia Virtuosi under conductor Daniel Spalding meticulously compiled a program that showcased Antheil for both the young maverick he started as and the older romantic that he became.

George Antheil, whose concerts caused riots all over Europe in the 1920s, and who titled his own autobiography Bad Boy of Music considered himself completely revolutionary. Born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey, he went to Europe to start his career in the company of such artistic greats as James Joyce, Pablo Picasso and Igor Stravinsky. But perhaps the most interesting part of Antheil's progression as a composer is his motion in the opposite direction from most others: as he matured, he moved increasingly towards the tonal.

The latest of Antheil's works, the three-movement Serenade II for Chamber Symphony (1949) was definitely the most compositionally mature, and also the most tonal. The sound from the orchestra was rich, dark, and sonorous, and was marked by a colorful *polytonality that was reminiscent of Bernstein or Ives. The first movement of the Serenade, which received its premiere in this performance, was the most powerful movement of the piece.

In the early 1930s, Antheil returned to the United States and hit it off with George Balanchine immediately. The [Dreams Ballet] (1934-35), the first of several ballets that Balanchine subsequently commissioned, is marked by both delicately woven textures and bold, rhythmically driven passages. It is full of imagination and has a distinct sense of character that is almost childlike and naïve. The work is beautifully crafted and seamless, and the Philadelphia Virtuosi certainly did justice to the work.

The earliest work programmed was Antheil's Second Piano Concerto (1926), with piano soloist Guy Livingston. Livingston's performance was astounding both technically and musically, and his commitment to the concerto was obvious. However, at a compositional level the piece seemed slightly disjointed and didn't fill out orchestrationally in the way the Serenade had.

So was Antheil really the "Bad Boy of Music," as his autobiography suggests? Perhaps that was the means he used to defined himself at the beginning of his career, and the premise on which he created a sensation. But as he grew compositionally and literally "changed his tune", moving into a language of which he had better command, his music transformed from the maverick into the deeply memorable.