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 [ Replying to Colin Hinz, 1999.10.20 MMDigest ]

Colin, some of your points are very well taken.  Allow me to address
some of them.

> 1.  Lehrman states that the 16-pianola plus effects version is the
> "original" version, dismissing the 4-pianola version as "preoriginal".
> Why it isn't granted official status isn't stated, but I'm left
> thinking that the 4-pianola version isn't the official, original
> version solely because it wasn't what Lehrman was commissioned to
> sequence.  I guess it wouldn't be proper to hype a "second" version,
> after all.

Actually, as far as the piano rolls/sequences are concerned, the two
are practically identical, so if someone wanted to perform the
4-pianolas-only version, they would be welcome to use the MIDI files
I am generating, with no other instruments.  But my research -- and
I don't pretend it's exhaustive, but I did spend a year and a half on
this -- indicates that Antheil really did want the percussion instru-
ments from the start, and the 4-pianolas score in the New York Public
Library has most of the percussion parts penciled in.  Inasmuch as he
never heard either version in its intended instrumentation, perhaps the
point is moot.

> 2.  At no point in the project did Lehrman acquaint himself with the
> operation and performance of a pneumatic player piano.  More than once
> he made serious errors in sequencing the scores, as a result of being
> unfamiliar with how the player piano turns perforations into music.
> Thankfully, he had the sense to turn to Rex Lawson for advice, and
> these mistakes were corrected.

Yes, Rex Lawson was helpful, as was Trimpin, George Litterst, Denis
Hall, and a number of other people.  I was not hired by Schirmer for
my knowledge of pneumatic player pianos: I was hired for my expertise
in MIDI and in 20th-century performance practice.  So I had to learn
about player pianos.  That's part of the process, isn't it?  If I were
ashamed of my initial ignorance, I certainly wouldn't have talked about
it in the article.

> 4.  There wasn't a practical technological quick-fix for the problem
> of simulating the pianolist's control of tempo, so he wimped out and
> slaved the entire performance to a metronomic click-track.

Actually, I came up with several fixes, but none of them were quick.
The door is certainly open for future performers to attempt to play the
piece with a pianolist in control of the tempo of the pianolas, and in
my documentation for Schirmer, this will be addressed.  But I think if
you were to look at the score, particularly the section starting at
measure 1060, with its completely insane and very rapid time signature
changes, you'd agree that this would be very, very difficult to pull
off.

> I'm sure the end result will be a great musical performance, and prob-
> ably even stunning.  But to hype it as a long-submerged resurfacing
> of "Antheil's original composition" seems crass, and perhaps outright
> misleading.

Thanks for your vote of confidence on the performance.  The students
are certainly working extremely hard to make this happen.  Is calling
this the "original" misleading?  Perhaps that could be argued -- but
the fact of the matter is the piece has never been heard in this
manner, ever, so I don't think it is out of line to consider it a
revival of an important long-lost composition.

> I have not heard any recordings or performances represented as being
> a version of "Ballet Mechanique".  My opinions on this latest attempt
> could be purely hallucinatory -- but so could Paul Lehrman's.  One
> thing is for certain, though -- you won't find articles worthy of
> scholarly merit in Wired Magazine.

There are a number of recordings available of the 1927 and 1953
versions.  I recommend very much the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble's
recording of the latter on the New Jersey Composers Guild label.  The
conductor is Raymond DesRoches, one of my teachers.  It's phenomenal --
but it's a very different piece from the one I've been working on.

Regarding Wired magazine, they have the most thorough fact-checking
procedure I have ever seen in 25 years of writing.  I have done
articles for scholarly journals that have been subject to far less
scrutiny.  They don't have the "refereed" editorial procedure of most
academic journals, but they leave no stone unturned.  They came back
to me and challenged my statements many times.  So perhaps they are not
"scholarly" -- but they are certainly accurate.

I also wanted to make a small comment on Karl Ellison's original post:
Wired magazine is in no way "sponsoring" the concert in Lowell -- I
wish they were.  In fact, I am producing this myself, with the space
being given to me by the University, and the student percussion
ensemble is performing the piece.  Many manufacturers, most notably
Yamaha, are donating equipment to make this event possible, but no cash
is changing hands.

In fact, we are not even charging admission.  An independent charitable
foundation in New York has agreed to accept donations that anyone might
like to make to help defray our costs -- details are on the web site,
http://www.antheil.org/

Paul Lehrman
Medford, MA

 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ Paul Lehrman is adjunct professor of Sound Recording Technology
 [ at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell MA, and is editorial
 [ director of the World Wide Web site for Mix magazine.
 [
 [ That's a nice letter, Paul; please visit us again!  I enjoyed
 [ reading the pages at your web site.
 [
 [ -- Robbie