GEORGE ANTHEIL: “LA FEMME 100 TETES.” David...

GEORGE ANTHEIL: “LA FEMME 100 TETES.” David Albee, piano. (CRI SD 502). The prewar compositions of George Antheil (1900-59) reveal a distinct American mechanistic aesthetic, where “...sounds of a factory, of boiler plates, or any other clangorous noisiness” (Ezra Pound) are given uncannily accurate musical expression. The 44 Preludes and “Percussion Dance” of “La Femme 100 Tetes) (1933), inspired by a collection of collaged etchings drawn from 19th-Century picture story books by the surrealist painter Max Ernst, are short, singularly associative “visual etudes,” composed of materials ranging from modular, repetitive units (a la Cubist technique) evoking AT&T; transcontinental connections, to intransigent scales suggesting Czerny exercises run amok. Motoric and/or vehicular motion is assured by frequent use of Stravinskyesquie rhythmic and melodic ostinatos, anticipating the minimalist composers of the 1960s.