Hello MMD readers,  Recently, in this newsletter, there has been a
string of postings about George Antheil's "Ballet Mecanique" -- texts
concerning recent presentations, the instruments used (beyond the
original pianola concept) and also mine concerning the reconstruction
of an entirely new version for a Stockholm Swedish TV-Radio presenta-
tion in 1991, followed by my second revision and eventual publication
of the rolls we offer continuously today.

While my 'Listeners Guide' which accompanies the Artcraft 3-Roll set
goes into great detail about the origins and relatively unknown history
of the experimental film-plus-player-piano composition, what has been
forgotten in these discussions, or recent treatises on the subject, is
the presence of a motion picture, for which the rolls were originally
designed as accompaniment.

The Murphy-Leger film, originally featuring bits by Man Ray, was also
called "Ballet Mecanique", but it never really fit the sounds of the
pneumatic player instrument, which was on-target with its simulation of
aeroplane engines, steam presses, printing machinery and other rhythmic
examples of heavy industry in the 'Twenties.  While the sundry versions
existing today (cut through censorship for nudity, to a great extent)
no longer match the playing time of the music rolls, my goal has been
to suggest that a _new film_ using _old images_ be created, in order
to restore the concept that was "Ballet Mecanique" in its initial film-
plus-pianola presentations for patrons in Paris Salons.

Antheil recycled 4 compositions for his accompaniment to the 'Synchro-
Cine' motion picture, as the titles announced.  For those who have not
seen the movie, after 'Synchro-Cine' comes "Charlot Presents", a refer-
ence to Charlie Chaplin, then the rage of European silent film, as well
as in the States.  This opening features an animated cubistic montage
of a Chaplinesque profile.  Then what is really just a party or novelty
movie begins, something which would be totally inappropriate for the
music that the solo player-piano would be providing, even if synchro-
nized perfectly before the motion picture was cut again and again.

The previous works of Fernand Leger stressed railroad steam engines and
steel foundries, not images of trick photography as the 'Synchro-Cine'
movie provided.  This is what attracted composer Antheil to Leger in
the first place! "Ballet Mecanique" recycled motives from four earlier
piano works which the composer had played in Berlin: "Sonata Sauvage",
"Aeroplane Sonata", "Mechanisms" and "Death of the Machines".

As I mentioned before, his idea of "Time Space" (adjusting these
repeating machinery themes to each segment of the motion picture)
is quite clear.  When playing my transcription of the score as an
interpretive arrangement (c.  1991) you can hear each superimposed
rhythm precisely, due to the striking differences cut into the master
rolls.  Without the truncated movie existing today, anybody can imagine
steam engines and motors with relative ease, concluding with the
collapse of them in the final sections of Roll III, which builds to
a fantastic conclusion through the use of blank spaces in between
the rhythmic patterns -- a "calm before the storm", as it were.

"Sonata Sauvage" was a piece designed to top Igor Stravinsky's rolls
of "Rite of Spring", and Antheil's writings reveal a competitive
relationship with the Russian composer (after the two had arrived in
Paris).  Stravinsky had a loft at the Pleyel piano factory at this
time, and it wasn't long before Antheil also had the company perforate
his own music, though very badly, as I mentioned in a previous MMD
posting.  When you compare Rite of Spring and the opening of "Ballet
Mecanique" with the Sonata Sauvage beginning, there is no doubt that
the Antheil music roll version is grander and more attention-getting,
yet created from a similar musical texture.

"Aeroplane Sonata" convincingly treats the pianolist to the whirring
sound of propellers and gasoline piston engines for the craft.  This
theme from that work appears at several points in "Ballet Mecanique",
and is nothing less than astounding when performed in the interpretive
arrangement medium.

"Mechanisms" sounds just like the bottling equipment I experienced
so frequently in my childhood, my father being a dairy scientist who
took me to processing plants in the 1940's.  Anyone who has been
around newspaper printing presses, canning machines or any repetitive
manufacturing equipment can form mental images with Antheil's extracts
from this work, which began as a piano solo in Germany.

"Death of the Machines" reminds me of the collapse of the city in
Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", though that famous UFA movie followed
"Ballet Mecanique" by several years.  The post World War I era, and
the high technology of mass destruction, was part of the Futuristic
movement in those days, and no doubt George Antheil decided to capture
the malfunctions of the mechanized life in some abstract way with
this music, appearing in dominant form on Roll III.  (In my opinion,
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  gave the readers like me in the 1950's a vivid
taste of what an industrial breakdown might provide with his novel
"Player-Piano", and in the same decade Ayn Rand also touched upon the
subject with "Atlas Shrugged".)

Now, with today's interest in film restoration, I believe it would
be a worthwhile project to make a brand-new motion picture for the
"Ballet Mecanique" rolls using old clips from Gaumont, Pathe, Universal
or Paramount newsreels and/or industrial films of the 1920's and the
early 1930's.  It wouldn't matter if the latter were sound Movietone
or UFA films, since most news pictures were shot silently, and the sound
effects were added in the studios at a later period.

How wonderful would be a film-plus-pianola version of "Ballet
Mecanique", with old movies cut to fit the scenes clearly suggested
by Antheil's player roll score.  At one moment, a pile driver could
be projected, and then a cut to an old biplane, followed by pneumatic
drills or riveting activities for the building of skyscrapers.

Even before I cut the rolls for the Stockholm presentation, I voiced
concerns about the two different aesthetic directions that the movie
and the rolls had traveled.  Eventually, Atheil wrote that these were
"parallel projects" when, in fact, during the planning stages they
were not.

Gershwin's 1931 "New York Rhapsody" (a.k.a. "Rhapsody of the Riveters")
was composed for an early color process used by Fox for that sequence in
"Delicious".  I have only seen it in black-and-white, though it could be
colorized for videotape use, and this would improve the dramatic effect.
Issued later as his "Second Rhapsody", this music was a turn-off in my
earlier years, and never made musical sense to me until I saw the movie
(in a 16mm print) at Don Rand's house in Thomaston, Maine.  As movie
accompaniment music, Gershwin's piece takes on a whole new aura, for it
fuses images with sound effects.  (For those who haven't seen this
motion picture sequence, the City of New York is "attacking" immigrant
Janet Gaynor in a surrealistic way, suggested perfectly by Gershwin's
original movie score.)

George Gershwin performed his "Concerto in F" for Antheil, when it
was still a work-in-progress, so the whole idea of film-plus-music
(pioneered by "Ballet Mecanique") interested him as well, during his
trip to Paris where the two met and exchanged musical thoughts.

I hope some day an enterprising motion picture person will take up the
challenge to create a new "Ballet Mecanique" film which will do justice
to my rolls: one that will complement and augment the already fantastic
musical elements in the perforated pianola arrangement.

So far, the Europeans to whom I've suggested this project have not
been interested in cutting-and-gluing old movies to fit the complete
music roll performance.  In fact, the Swedish presentation of 1991 went
the reverse direction: cutting the rolls to "fit" the film! (This had
to destroy the balance in the composition, for it was, as the composer
stated, constructed from a classical viewpoint.)

The rolls are ready in our time -- now all we need is some film editor
to assemble a movie to match the scenes suggested by the solo pianola.
Any ideas?

Regards from Maine

Douglas Henderson, Artcraft Music Rolls
PO Box 295, Wiscasset, ME 04578 USA
(207) 882-7420
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/