George Antheil’s Wigmore Hall Concert, 22 June 1922.

On 7 June 1922, George Antheil (1900-1959) arrived at Southampton Docks aboard the Canadian Pacific Line transatlantic liner the Empress of Scotland. He had set sail from Quebec in Canada. The official incoming passenger document stated he was a composer/pianist. His proposed address in London was the Old Colony Club, Pall Mall.

A syndicated article in Westminster Gazette (21 June 1922, p.3) reported that: “Mr. George Antheil, who is giving a pianoforte recital at the Wigmore Hall tomorrow afternoon is a young American musician who is said to be of remarkable promise. Although not yet in his twenties, one of his symphonies has been played by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, and his pianoforte compositions, some of which he is including in his programme, to-morrow are attracting attention in the States.”

He was, in fact, nearly 22 years of age. His Symphony No.1, which had been completed in March 1922; it was not performed by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra before Antheil’s trip to Europe. The premiere was given on 30 November 1922, in the German capital by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg.

The author of the only critical study of George Antheil, Linda Whitesitt, has included a list of music performed at the Wigmore Hall at 3pm on 22 June 1922. It was in three discrete sections, with works by Chopin, several “modern pieces,” and a selection of Antheil’s own works.

Part 1
Frederic Chopin: Ballade in G minor, op.23; Nocturne in F-sharp minor, op.48, no.2; Mazurka in G-sharp minor, op.33, no.1; Etude in G-flat major, op.10, no.5; Valse in A-flat major, op.69, no.1

Part 2
Igor Stravinsky: Khorovod (Round Dance) (from Firebird Suite)
Isaac Albéniz: Malagueña, (from España, op.165, no. 3)
Claude Debussy: Reflets dans l’eau
Achilles Alpheraky: Sérénade levantine (from Trio Morceaux, op.25)

Part 3
George Antheil: Fireworks and the Profane Waltzes (1919); Negroes (c.1920-21); The Golden Bird: Chinoiserie (1921); Sonata II. (Street Sonata) (c.1920-21); Sonata III. (Steel-Roads-Airplanes) (1922)
(Cited in Whitesitt, Linda, The Life and Music of George Antheil 1900-1959, (Studies in Musicology, no.70, Ann Arbor, MI 1983, p.8).

It should be noted that not all of Antheil’s compositions played at the Wigmore Hall are extant. Although Whitesitt refers to Negroes in the catalogue section of her book, there is no suggestion that it still exists, even in holograph. The same source states that the Sonata II. (Street Sonata) was destroyed by the composer. Finally, Sonata III. (Steel-Roads-Airplanes) may have partly survived in the Airplane Sonata (1922).

Historiographers are lucky to have the Antheil’s own account of this concert. Nevertheless, there seem to be a few discrepancies in the “historical facts.”

“When I went to Europe it was not very long after the last war. I gave my first European concert in Wigmore Hall, London, on June 22, 1922. Soon after I began the concert, I noticed that an elderly lady sat in the front row. I kept seeing her very distinctly. She had an enormous ear trumpet in her ear, and she was smiling. I was playing Chopin. The Chopin was going into her ear trumpet and making her smile. I played a Mozart sonata. That made her smile too. Then I played some Schoenberg and some pieces of my own. She looked mystified, shook the ear trumpet. Then she put it up to her ear again, listened, and looked very sour. She shook the ear trumpet again, this time but good. She listened again. No good. She shrugged her shoulders, put her enormous ear trumpet in her bag and went out. Obviously, something was wrong with her ear trumpet.” (Antheil, George, Bad Boy of Music, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y.,1945 p.4ff)

A delightful story. Yet, there is no indication that Antheil played either Mozart or Schoenberg at that concert. To be sure, this account was written twenty-three years, so later there could have been a lapse of memory. Maybe it was at another concert altogether...

In a letter (1922) to the American writer, artist and social activist, Muriel Draper, Antheil lamented that in London he “encountered only profound boneheads. … Goosens [sic] was the only one who understood. I wept. They are fish. They write with incredible stupidity about ‘rattling, percussive music.’ I deduct from their writings about the matter that they think [my] music is bad.” Cited Leland, Hannah The “Bad Boy of Music” in Paris George Antheil’s Violin Sonatas 2015, p.9)

The following day, The Times (23 June 1922, p.7) considered that the titles of Antheil’s piano pieces implied that they were “extremely modern” however “they were not as interesting as this kind of music can be, on account of their technical limitations.”  The critic was reminded of the work of Leo Ornstein, however “nowadays, the style and method have become commonplace, and one soon finds it difficult to keep one’s attention unless, maybe, some very strong personal factor comes into play in the performance. Mr Antheil’s playing is too superficial for that, and though he can be noisy and vehement and has plenty of facility and agility, it all sounded very dry and unconvincing.”

The Manchester Evening News (23 June 1922 p.3) reported that “A very remarkable exhibition of pianoforte playing was given at the Wigmore Hall, London, yesterday, by Mr George Antheil… It was a doubly remarkable performance inasmuch as Mr Antheil is a brilliant executant and exceptionally fine pianist, who apparently prefers to squander his heritage on a mass of rubbish. One of his pieces was entitled ‘Sonata 3 (Steel-Roads-Airplanes)’ It is difficult to know where one movement ended and the next began, the medley was so bizarre and the noise so terrific. This eccentricity was one of five of his own composition. Another he called Fireworks and the Profane Waltzes. The one attempt at conventionality was a group of Chopin rendered with the most aggressive accents. The sole saving grace of the recital being his playing of Debussy’s Reflets L’eau. The pity of it all was that Mr Antheil, with his wonderful gifts, might have obtained a genuine success had he only employed legitimate means. As things happened, we were left simply gaping.”

The Daily Telegraph (24 June 1922, p.5) reporter, possibly Robin Legge, considered that “[Antheil’s own compositions’] outstanding quality was their clear and distinct individuality. Influence there had certainly been, influence from Stravinsky and from Debussy, and from all the teeming ideas and forms which go to make Modernity, and yet we received the impression that all these had been reduced to their prime elements and by an inexplicable alchemistic process had mingled together to produce a new idea and a new form. This depended chiefly on an extremely delicate and ever-varying rhythmic sense. It was all - especially the “Street Sonata” - restless and intense, and created a yearning to which nothing would yield...

Such “Claustrophobia-music” as Antheil’s must be judged not according to any pre-conceived idea of Beauty, or of what Art is allowed to express and what not, but according to the degree of efficiency in which its functions are carried out; this is the only way in which a critic can be said to have a leg to stand on, and a firm place to put it.”