Collection 43-M

George Antheil Motion Picture and Television Music Collection

Antheil was born on June 8, 1900, in Trenton, NJ; he began piano lessons at age six and later studied composition under Ernest Bloch from 1919-21; after a successful tour of Europe as a concert pianist in the early 1920s he took up residence in Paris, and began composing, using jazz rhythms and mechanical devices in symphonic music; his most famous work, Ballet mTcanique (1924), intended as an accompaniment to the experimental Fernand Leger film of that name, is a score that calls for such unorthodox instruments as mechanical pianos, airplane propellers, and electric bells; his opera Transatlantic (1927-28) was staged in Frankfurt in 1930; from 1929-33 he divided his time between Europe and the US, solidifying a fundamentally American style, using a synthesis of American folk-like material that appears in almost all of his later compositions; returning permanently to the US in 1933, he continued to write for musical theater and wrote ballet scores for George Balanchine and Martha Graham; he began composing for Hollywood films in 1935 while continuing his work for the concert hall and settled in Hollywood in 1936; in the 1940s, he embraced a new romantic spirit in his music, especially in his successful symphonies no. 4 & 5; wrote a set 4 operas in the early 1950s; died in New York on Feb. 12, 1959.

Collection consists of holographs, ozalid and other copies of scores, short scores and parts of George Antheil's music for motion picture and television productions. Includes music for The plainsman, The buccaneer, Knock on any door, Not as a stranger, In a lonely place, and The pride and the passion.

For additional information about this collection consult:

Catalog record
Finding aid

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