A quixotic career was t o be the destiny of the American composer George Anthei

At age 25 (the "bad boy of music," the title of his book), Antheil broke the sou
around him by placing an airplane motor in his orchestral piece HI-rllet Mechawique.
airplane in the twenties? Think how startling t o hear it in the concert hall! But in
Anthe3 had an audience. And what an audience! He became the darling of many men an
women in Paris who were adding their names t o the history of arts in nur tirne-Pound.
Picasso, H e m i n p a y , Joyce, Yeats. The list is long.
George Antheil was born in Trenton, New Jersey, July 8th, 1900 and died in New
York City, February 12th, 1959. His principal teacher, in compo
BIoch. But it was the telling impact upon him of Stravinsky (notabIy Le Sacre
t e m , ~ ,1913) that the dissonant and ascerbic style of Antheil's ea
manifest. Hearing Antheil's Fift'ft5 Symphony a listener wondered at
of it t o Shostakovitch's Fafth, whereupon a music critic glibly answer
like Shostakovitch before anyone had heard about the Russian." Sim
Ives is also mentioned when discussing Antheil's music. But, like most of us,
no inkling thar there was a man named Ives writing music,
Comprising four short movements, Sonlrtn for Trumpet (written abou
tures the composer in a mood most lyrical. The "bad boy" is harkenin
sounds that had given him so much pleasure before he began to pla)
But here we must pay homage t o his great talent; clearly evident is his ear
changes, his robust, healthy rhythms, his musical ideas, and his melodic
most discernible in this Sonata for Trumpet.

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