Antheil: A Jazz Symphony

Trade Mark "Bad Boy" - After all the experimental episodes the audience has faced in the field of New Music in recent decades, today the oeuvre of George Antheil will be welcomed with a great deal of sympathy and many a friendly smile. The American knew full well not only how to meet the expectations of an audience "prepared to protest", but also how even to challenge them more overtly. An excellent example is the Jazz Symphony, written in 1925, shortly after George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, that bursting the limits of the customary listening experiences of teh age in a similar way to e.g. Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps of 1913.

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REVIEW:

Thanks in large part to Karl-Heinz Steffens’s interpretation, I’d argue that A Jazz Symphony, despite its blatant references to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, are woven inextricably into the music’s narrative structure. Steffens underscores the work’s unifying characteristics rather than emphasizing its incongruities.

Pianist Frank Dupree’s finely chiseled performance in the First Piano Concerto maintains a tighter grip overall than any of his rivals.

– Gramophone