George Antheil

Born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1900, George Antheil seemed destined to cause a ruckus. He styled himself as a musical rebel almost from the start, promising to “shock New York” with his compositions—and he delivered. His early training came under the stern eye of the German-American pianist Constantino von Sternberg, but Antheil quickly grew frustrated with the traditional path. By his late teens, he was soaking up the avant-garde winds blowing out of Europe, and his piano compositions became a battleground for radical new ideas.

Antheil's solo piano music is pure dynamite. His 1923 work, Airplane Sonata, captures the mechanical energy of the modern world with a kind of reckless abandon. Pianists tackling his pieces need nerves of steel: relentless rhythms, motoric patterns, and thunderous clusters dominate much of his early work. He delighted in extremes—extreme speed, extreme volume, extreme dissonance. His piano suite Mechanisms (c. 1923) churns like factory gears in overdrive, while pieces like Death of Machines and Sonatina for Radio take industrial sounds and smash them into musical forms that barely existed before he imagined them.

Antheil's most notorious piano work was Ballet Mécanique (1924), originally written for synchronized player pianos, sirens, airplane propellers, and percussion. But he also adapted parts of it for live solo performance, including brutal, battery-like passages that demanded stamina and sheer willpower from any pianist brave enough to attempt them. The nickname “the Bad Boy of Music” (which he later used as the title for his 1945 autobiography) stuck—and he wore it like a badge of honor.

Through the 1920s, Antheil lived mostly in Paris, where he became a notorious figure in avant-garde circles, befriending artists like Man Ray, Erik Satie, and even the ever-elusive James Joyce. His piano recitals often caused riots—not because he was incompetent (he was, in fact, an excellent pianist), but because audiences were either thrilled or horrified by the raw, mechanical violence of his music.

By the 1930s, however, the revolutionary energy of his early work began to settle. Antheil moved to Hollywood and, pragmatically, turned to film scoring to pay the bills. Though he continued to compose "serious" music—including lush symphonies and operas—his piano output slowed and softened somewhat. Pieces like the Valentine Waltzes and other late piano miniatures show a more lyrical, romantic side—worlds away from the piston-pounding violence of his Paris years.

In his final decades, Antheil also pursued strange side ventures: he co-invented a torpedo guidance system (with actress Hedy Lamarr, no less), dabbled in writing newspaper advice columns, and published essays on everything from endocrinology to world politics. He was a restless mind, always chasing the next idea, musical or otherwise.

Sadly, Antheil’s health began to decline in the late 1950s. Still, he remained active, composing and writing almost to the end. On February 12, 1959, at the age of 58, George Antheil died suddenly of a heart attack in New York City. His death was unexpected, but somehow fitting for a man who had lived his life at full speed.

Today, Antheil's solo piano music is recognized for what it is: a fierce, electrifying testament to the radical spirit of the early 20th century. His pieces might not be performed as often as those of Debussy or Prokofiev, but when a pianist dares to take them on, they unleash the crackling, rebellious energy of a true American original.

Selected Performances

Berceuse for Thomas Montgomery Newman - Written in 1955 to celebrate the birth of Thomas Newman—the son of Antheil’s friends Martha Louis Montgomery and the legendary film composer Alfred Newman—this brief solo piano work is a sweet and tender lullaby ("berceuse" means "cradle song" in French). It’s a far cry from Antheil’s machine-age mayhem. Instead, the Berceuse floats on gentle melodies and warm, simple harmonies, like a quiet musical blessing for a newborn entering the world.

Little did anyone know that baby Thomas would grow up to become one of the most celebrated film composers of his own generation, scoring modern classics like The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and Finding Nemo. In a way, Antheil’s lullaby was the first musical tribute to a career that was still decades away.

Berceuse for Thomas Montgomery Newman offers a rare glimpse into Antheil’s capacity for tenderness—proof that even the "bad boy of music" could, when he wanted, write something as soft and heartfelt as a cradle song.

---

Piano Sonata #4 - George Antheil’s Piano Sonata No. 4 (1923) reflects the bold, mechanical spirit of his early style, often called "ultramodernist." Written during his time in Paris, the sonata pulses with driving rhythms, dissonant harmonies, and abrupt shifts in texture and tempo, embodying Antheil's fascination with technology and the avant-garde. Though compact in form, it delivers a fierce, kinetic energy, showing Antheil's desire to challenge traditional notions of beauty and musical structure. It stands as a vivid example of his quest to create a "machine music" for the 20th century.

Piano Sonata No. 2 'The Airplane' - George Antheil’s Piano Sonata No. 2, known as The Airplane Sonata (1921), captures the spirit of speed, power, and modern invention that fascinated the early 20th century. Characterized by pounding rhythms, sharp dissonances, and sudden dynamic shifts, the piece mimics the energy and turbulence of flight. Antheil’s aggressive, percussive writing pushes the boundaries of traditional piano technique, anticipating the mechanical aesthetic that would define his later works. The Airplane Sonata stands as an early manifesto of Antheil's "futurist" ambitions, blending chaos and precision in a way that feels both daring and strangely exhilarating.

Locating The Music

Some of Antheil's piano compositions can be downloaded for free at IMSLP. There is also a very good collection of piano pieces available at Amazon.

Compositions for Piano

Airplane Sonata - 1921

Sonata No. 2 for Piano ("The Airplane") - 1923

Sonata No. 3 for Piano ("Death of Machines") - 1923

Sonata No. 4 for Piano ("Jazz Sonata") - 1923

Sonata No. 5 for Piano ("Joyous") - 1923

Sonata Sauvage - 1923

Mechanisms - 1923

Little Shimmy - 1923

Woman - 1923

Valentine Waltzes - 1923

La Femme 100 Têtes - 1926

Sarabande for the Dying Infant - 1923

Night Piece - 1923

Spectre of the Rose Waltz - 1946

Piano Album (collection of short pieces) - 1950

Sonatina for Piano - 1950

Piano Sonata No. 6 - 1950

Piano Sonata No. 7 - 1951

Piano Sonata No. 8 - 1952

Piano Sonata No. 9 ("A Bad Boy") - 1955

Berceuse for Thomas Montgomery Newman - 1955

Piano Sonata No. 10 ("Waltz-Sonata") - 1956

Piano Sonata No. 11 ("Sonata in A Flat") - 1957

Piano Sonata No. 12 - 1959