The Original American In Paris

Material used in or researched for the programme
as at 1988


These booklists are reconstructed from notes that I made while researching the programme at that time and have not been updated to include recent CDs. However there is a comprehensive recent (2001) discography by Tommi A. Ojanperä. But I have no further info, so please don't email me. The information is given here for others to follow up if they so wish.

The discs quoted are all vinyl. The BBC recordings refered to are ones which I made by programming Antheil's music into an Atari 1040 running Pro24, which was then output as MIDI data into the Yamaha Disklavier (a MIDI controlled acoustic piano) which played the music.

There was a pleasant irony in this since Antheil's Ballet Mécanique had made pioneering use of the player-piano - indeed his original intentions for the piece had been defeated by available technology, and had he had the equipment available in 1988 he could have achieved what he had wanted.

This was the first broadcast use made of the Disklavier. Nobody who has heard the recordings has any idea that it isn't a live pianist.

Discography

Airplane Sonata Maxwell Steer BBC rec
Airplane Sonata Roger Shields VOX SVBX 5303 A
Ballet Mécanique Charles Amirkhanian Pianola Recording
Ballet Mécanique de Leeuw + Netherlands Wind Ens Telefunken 6.42196
Ballet Mécanique Surinach + NY Perc Gp Columbia ML 4956
Capital of the World Disc
Death of Machines Maxwell Steer BBC rec
Jazz Sonata Maxwell Steer BBC rec
Jazz Symphony de Leeuw +
Netherlands Wind Ens
Telefunken 6.42196
La Femme 100 Tetes after Max Ernst David Albee Capitol CTL 7081
CRI SD 502
Nightpiece
Aria by James Joyce
Nancy Hadden, sop
Maxwell Steer, pno
BBC rec
Piano Sonata IV Frederick Marvin ALCO ALP 1007
Sonata Sauvage Maxwell Steer BBC rec
Symphony IV Goossens + LSO Everest LPBR 6013
Symphony V Haefner + VPO SPA 16
Symphony V Duffallo + Lousiville SOLS-770
Violin Sonata 1 Beths + de Leeuw Telefunken 6.42196
Violin Sonata 2 Beths + de Leeuw Telefunken 6.42196

Bibliography

Margaret Anderson My 30 Years' War US
George Antheil Bad Boy of Music Hurst & Blackett
George Antheil Death In The Dark Faber, UK
George Antheil Unpublished Letters Library of Congress
George Antheil Fiction, memoirs & Lonely Hearts advice ESQUIRE magazine 1938 - 1954
Aaron Copland Modern Music III/3 US 1926
Donald Friede Mechanical Angel Knopf 1948
Bravig Imbs Confessions of another young man Henkle Yewdale House NYC 1938
Eugene Jolas quoted in The Left Bank revisited (ed H Ford) Penn State UP
Mrs Curtis Bok
Unpublished Letters Library of Congress
Ezra Pound Antheil & The Treatise on Harmony Critical Ed w commentary by Ned Rorem
Ezra Pound Guide to Kulchur New Directions Books NY
Ezra Pound The Criterion II/7 Ap 1924c quoted in Whitesitt
Ezra Pound Unpublished Letters Library of Congress
Irving Schwerké
quoted in The Left Bank revisited (ed H Ford) Penn'a State U Press
Caesar Searchinger
Der Querschnitt IV (1924) quoted in Whitesitt
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson Knopf
TIME Mag XLIII /9
Linda Whitesitt
George Antheil US
William C Williams
transition III (1928) quoted in Whitesitt


Go to ...
The Original American in Paris - part 1
The Original American in Paris - Introduction
Brief biography by Antheil's son Chris Beaumont
Maxwell's Home Page
Maxwell's Creative Pages
Email to Maxwell Steer