George Antheil's Symphonies

[Dundonnell]

(Apologies if this has been satisfactorily covered before. I did a search and found some comment but not a full list.)

As far as I can make out the situation regarding Antheil's orchestral symphonies(as opposed to other works he labelled as 'symphonies', like the 'Jazz Symphony') is as follows:

Symphony No.1 "Zingareska"(1920/1923): recorded by CPO, coupled with Symphony No.6 "After Delacroix" and "Archipelago"(the third movement of Symphony
        No.2)
Symphony in F(1925/1926)
Symphony No.2(1931/1936 or 1936; revised 1943): withdrawn by the composer; third movement 'Archipelago' recorded as above
Symphony No.3 "American"(1936/1939): recorded by CPO, coupled with four shorter works
Symphony No.4 "1942"(1942/1943): recorded by CPO, coupled with Symphony No.5 "Joyous" and 'Decatur at Algiers'
                                                          recorded by Naxos, coupled with Symphony No.6 "After Delacroix" and Overture 'McKonkey's Ferry'
Tragic Symphony(1945/1946), sometimes called Symphony No.5: withdrawn by the composer
Symphony No.5 "Joyous", sometimes called Symphony No. 5A(1947/1948): recorded by CPO coupled as above
                                                                                                                      issued by Naxos in their Classical Archives series coupled with a piece by Werner
                                                                                                                      Josten
Symphony No.6 "After Delacroix"(1948): recorded by CPO and by Naxos as above

Now, IF this is accurate, that means that the one extant and unwithdrawn Antheil Symphony which has not been recorded is the early Symphony in F which is still in the Schirmer catalogue. CPO have not recorded Symphony No.2 because it was withdrawn(as a post in the thread on Unsung American Symphonies correctly stated) but they could still try the Symphony in F.

I am more than happy to be proved wrong in any of this It is a minefield

[Callipygian]

The online list of works by Schirmer does not seem to mention symphony in F anymore (http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?tabid=2419&State_2872=3&ComposerID_2872=35&CategoryID_2872=0), but yes, it certainly existed and, indeed, it has never been recorded.

For what it is worth, Aaron Copland, who was on very friendly terms with Antheil and loved his works, wrote to a friend that the symphony was a "Hashed Potpourri of almost every 19th-century composer mentioned in the music histories" and concluded that it was "a disappointment even to such Antheilians as myself" (Crist & Shirley, 2006, "The selected correspondence of Aaron Copland", Yale University, p. 50) 

[vandermolen]

The Goossens recording of Symphony No 4 (Everest/Bay Cities) is a great favourite as is Stokowski's NBC SO world premiere recording of 1944 - on a great Cala CD with Vaughan Williams's Symphony No 4 and Geordge Butterworth's 'A Shropshire Lad'.

[Dundonnell]

The online list of works by Schirmer does not seem to mention symphony in F anymore (http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?tabid=2419&State_2872=3&ComposerID_2872=35&CategoryID_2872=0), but yes, it certainly existed and, indeed, it has never been recorded.

For what it is worth, Aaron Copland, who was on very friendly terms with Antheil and loved his works, wrote to a friend that the symphony was a "Hashed Potpourri of almost every 19th-century composer mentioned in the music histories" and concluded that it was "a disappointment even to such Antheilians as myself" (Crist & Shirley, 2006, "The selected correspondence of Aaron Copland", Yale University, p. 50) 

From the Schirmer catalogue:

Symphonie en fa (1925) - 30 minute(s)

Orchestration   2+2pic.322/8440/timp.perc/str

http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2419&State_2872=3&ComposerID_2872=35&CategoryID_2872=19

( The key difference between the links being the last two numbers).

[swanekj]

.

1-6 to listen to here, and lots of other works:

http://classical-music-online.net/en/composer/Antheil/2006

P.S.  These will load into your Temporary Internet files as mp3s, and you can copy them if you wish.

[chill319]

I'm curious as to what other forum members think of recording "withdrawn" but extant works, such as the Antheil symphonies. Here's my own take:

If a composer *really* doesn't want a work played, he can destroy it, as Sibelius did in the case of the 8th symphony but not in the case of the Kullervo symphony; as Harry Partch did for all of his traditional works; as many other composers have done.

If a composer "withdraws" a work and has time enough to recompose or destroy it but does neither, it would almost seem as though the composer were trying to have it both ways.

I don't see how Beethoven's second-water works (the King Stephan overture, say) detract in the least from his masterpieces. And he certainly never withdrew them.

[Mark Thomas]

Once the composer, or his estate, cease to have a claim on his output then it seems to me that there's no obstacle to performance.

[Miles R.]

Does anyone have reliable information on how the composer pronounced his surname? Richard Rhodes's recently published Hedy's Folly asserts (without documentation) that he pronounced it "ANT-hile," but this seems to me very unlikely, as such a pronunciation, besides being laborious and unnatural, agrees with neither the German pronunciation (phonetically ['antăɪl], or, approximated in English phonics, "AHN-tile") nor the one that would be in accord with English orthoepy, "AN-thile."

[alberto]

I cannot reply the above question. If I remember well the (supposedly American) speaker audible in the Stokowskj Cala live recording of Symphony n.4 pronounces "antail" (AHN-tile).

[reiger]

The pronunciation I've heard is ANN-tile.

[alberto]

Dear "Reiger", certainly your English is much better than mine.So we have heard the same pronounciation.

[Patrick Murtha]

Does anyone have reliable information on how the composer pronounced his surname? Richard Rhodes's recently published Hedy's Folly asserts (without documentation) that he pronounced it "ANT-hile," but this seems to me very unlikely, as such a pronunciation, besides being laborious and unnatural, agrees with neither the German pronunciation (phonetically ['antăɪl], or, approximated in English phonics, "AHN-tile") nor the one that would be in accord with English orthoepy, "AN-thile."

I have always pronounced it in the way that Rhodes suggests, and I feel I must have a reason for that, but I can't recall whether it is because someone once pointed that out to me as the correct pronunciation.

Name pronunciation questions can be very interesting; for example, the last name of the British novelist Anthony Powell, well-known for his 12-volume roman fleuve A Dance to the Music of Time, is pronounced PO-uhl, a fact that few seem to know (and that makes one feel very insider-ish to be aware of).

[reiger]

Yes Alberto, we are in agreement. 

[Miles R.]

I have always pronounced it in the way that Rhodes suggests, and I feel I must have a reason for that, but I can't recall whether it is because someone once pointed that out to me as the correct pronunciation.

Name pronunciation questions can be very interesting; for example, the last name of the British novelist Anthony Powell, well-known for his 12-volume roman fleuve A Dance to the Music of Time, is pronounced PO-uhl, a fact that few seem to know (and that makes one feel very insider-ish to be aware of).

I am going to stick with "ANN-tile": it has the best combination of fidelity to origins and naturalness in English. If I accepted Rhodes's claim that the composer pronounced it "ANT-hile," a pronunciation that agrees neither with German nor with English, I would call him "Anthill" just to deride his affectation.

I had the good fortune to learn the correct pronunciation of Anthony Powell's name when I first learned of his existence. (I have read the entire Dance twice, and some of its novels a third time.) I suspect that, at least in the USA, among the comparatively few people who have even heard of him, most are devoted readers who know how his name is pronounced. 

As it happens, the person from whom I first heard of Anthony Powell--a close friend, now deceased--was also the person from whom I first heard of George Antheil. At that time, however, I did not interest myself in the works of the latter, and did not take note at the time of how my friend pronounced his name (not that he would necessarily have had any better information about its pronunciation than I have).

[Dundonnell]

Since I started this thread and since it has drifted considerably from the original point of the Antheil symphonies I feel fully entitled to add this further aside-

There are two British brothers: Lord Powell of Bayswater(as Charles Powell, former Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher) and Jonathan Powell(former Chief of Staff to Tony Blair).
The former pronounces his name to rhyme with "pole" and the latter pronounces his name to rhyme with "towel"   What hope do any of us have of being sure of our pronounciations