A "great deal" of Antheil's music has been recorded, though perhaps not as
much as the output would warrant.  As for current availablilty:

For his most famous work, the "Ballet Mecanique" there are currently two
very different recordings of the work in as many incarnations.  The 1927
New York vesion is heard as part of a concert recording on MusicMasters
with the New Palais Royale Orchestra under the direction of Maurice Peress
(MusicMasters 60794).  This is the only recording of something approaching
the original version, and as such reccomends itself.  It is also what I
call the "kitchen sink" version- it has everything in it.  Too much,
probably.  Unfortunately the earlier "Paris" version never existed in
anything like a "full score" and the performance materials which survive
are apparently incomplete.  There was still an earlier version (which I
call "audition", 1923) which was for the four player pianos alone.  It
was given upatairs at the Pleyel shop on four players which were placed
in storage, for an invited audience which included Picasso, Pound and
Stravinsky.  With no digital technology to help him, Antheil simply ran
from one piano to the next, making adjustments, trying to keep them in
sync.  While it is unlikely that anyone would undertake recording the work
in this, I for one would like to hear it.  The 1954 revision is heard as
part of the Ensemble Modern's "Fighting the Waves" collection of Antheil's
early pieces on BMG Classics (68066).  The '54 revision has a lot of
advantages over earlier versions in that the formal structure of the piece
is altogether more successful and Antheil's intended effect far more fully
realized.  Lost is the delicious bit of dissonant stride at the start of
"Roll 2", but you can see why; there was nothing to balance such a passage
in the revision.  In the original "Roll 3" there is long sequence of
diminishing crashes which are seperated by silences and lead, almost
predictably, to a HUGE fortissimo - a wallop of noise.  In the revision,
Antheil discards this whole section in favor of a series of carefully
developed tiers of noise which vary in intensity.  As a result the final
series of climaxes have far more impact.  While the earlier version seems
more experimental and even "post-modern", the revision is clearer and
altogther more purposeful in design, and even seems more "mechanichal".
Unfortunately, the Ensemble Modern version suffers from that flaw which
seems to infect most contemporary performances of "Ballet Mecanique"- too
fast tempi.  Antheil supervised a recording for Columbia in 1955 which was
led by Carlos Surinach, this and a slightly later stereo recording for
Urania by the Paul Price ensemble still stand as the best representation
of the '54 revision.  A similar situation exists for the "Jazz Symphony",
written in 1926 for W.C Handy's band.  The Peress uses the original 1926
version, and the Ensemble Modern the 1953 revision.  The 1926 version is
longer by some 7-8 minutes over the revision.  This however, does not make
it better.  In his liner notes to the 1955 "Ballet Mecanique" recording,
Antheil states that in revising the work he had removed a number of
repetitions from the score, owing to the fact that it was originally
intended for film and that these were patterned after the images therein.
But he may as well have been talking about the "Jazz Symphony" and his
other early work in general, which is heavily dependant on repetition of
short, mechanical phrases.  In some instances, such as in the fragment of
the First Violin Sonata, this works very effectively, but in the "Jazz
Symphony" the revision is clearly stronger without them.  Also, improvised
segments, which would have been done idiomatically by Handy's men, fall
completely flat in the New Palais Royale recording.  Again, the Ensemble
Modern takes the music altogether too fast.  A 1976 concert recording with
Reinbert De Leeuw and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, once a Telefunken Lp,
then a Philips CD (get that? it's true!), now unavailable, was closer to
the mark.  As to Antheil's other symphonies, a fine recording of the Fourth
(subtitled "1942") is recorded on Everest by Eugene Goosens and the LSO
(EVC 9039).  The piece was a Stokowski commission, and was slated to have
been recorded under his baton in this instance, but unfortunately Stoki's
tenure with Houston was cut short before he had a chance to record the
work.  I hold out hope that a radio aircheck of the maestro in this work
will surface, as he would have made the most of the Fourth's big climaxes.
A sloppy, unfocused reading of Antheil's Fifth Symphony may be found on
Centaur with Barry Kolman and the Slovak State PO of Kosice (2293).  A much
better one was once available on Lp with Mester and Louisville on their own
label.  Along with the symphony comes a flat reading of Antheil's TV ballet
"Capital of the World" (1953) which demnstrates his considerable command of
the 'South of the Border' idiom; by all means obtain this work in the
stunning mono recording by Joseph Levine and the Ballet Theater Orchestra
on EMI, although it's slightly abriged.  Finally on the Centaur disc comes
it's only saving grace, the 1934 movement "Archipelago" which brims with
rhumba rhythm and comes off' fairly well here.  This is so far the only
movement from Antheil's many orchestral suites to come to light on record.
Before taking leave of Antheil's orchestral music, I would like to address
the (mostly mid-century) notion that Antheil was a composer who blossomed
young and died off early into music which was conventional and uninspired.
Truth is, much of his best music is to found in the later years, when he
had fully matured and found his voice.  Much of the early music is
fascinating through it's audacity and propulsiveness, but a fair number of
the 'futurist' works suffer from a 'too-short' syndrome which indicate a
lack of fully 'cracking the nut' (or least, incomplete notation of the work
as played.) Also, his early pieces are highly segmented and have weak
development sections.  In the late works, he has a full command of his
style and gets through to the meat of the matter.  It is also an untruth
that he turned his back on 'modernism'.  Actually, Antheil found a way to
incorporate elements of his 'futurist' style into more conventional
structures, and the way in which he does so makes for intriguing listening.

As to chamber music, the best thing the current market has to offer on
Antheil's behalf is a recording of his Violin Sonatas by Vera Beths and
Reinbert DeLeeuw on Disques Montaigne (782022).  Beths is best known as a
member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players and an period practice stylist,
however in this instance she had access to a resource she could never hope
for in Baroque music- she was able to consult with Olga Rudge, the
violinist for whom the works were written.  Beths and DeLeeuw pull this
difficult, agitated music off splendidly.  The Violin Sonatas are among the
most inspired of Antheil's futurist creations, and this is one of the best
recordings of Antheil's music ever offered to the public.  I wish I could
say the same for the many chamber works repoduced on the Ensemble Modern's
"Fighting the Waves", but there is one unqualified gem there- a string
quartet movement from 1919 entitled "Lithuanian Night" which is motoric
and folk-based.  The Concerto for Chamber Orchestra on the same disc does
not come off nearly as well.  I had high hopes for this CD when it was
announced; I thought "here is the CD which will finally MAKE George
Antheil", but unfortunately it mostly breaks him.  I await the genuine
article yet today.  The First String Quartet is found on the New Palais
Royale CD, but it's not great shakes.  At one time the on again, off again
Dutch label Etcetera (which now seems off for good) made available a CD of
Antheil's four String Quartets (sorry, can't remember the name of the
ensemble).  What was surprising is that the Fourth Quartet, written in
1948, was by far the strongest of the group.  The earlier three, while they
had moments of inspiration, seemed in comparision to consist of mostly
abstract doodling with little or no forward momentum.  As to his other
chamber pieces on disc there are two recordings of Antheil's 1951 Trumpet
Sonata, which is essayed by Finnish trumpeter Jouko Harjanne on a Finladia
CD called "American Trumpet Sonatas" (17691) and Thomas Stevens on a
Crystal CD (665, the latter entry seems to have escaped the notice of the
Schwann Opus).  I prefer Harjanne, though either version is acceptable in
this slight and undemanding work.  Antheil's early piano music is the one
area of his output which is well represented on CD.  There are two full
length Cds devoted to it by Marthanne Verbit (Albany 146) and Benedikt
Koehlen (Col Legno 31880), and various pieces are included in two other
collections "The Bad Boys" by Steffan Schliermacher (Hat Art 6144) and
"Futurpiano" by Danielle Lombardi (Nuova Era 7240).  In this reperetoire
Verbit wins hands down- she has simply done the most concentrated study
of the available manuscripts and has a formidable technique to bear on
the pieces- she really makes them shine.  Particularly strong are her
recordings of the lovely "Valentine Waltzes" of 1947- major American piano
reperetoire which, to my knowledge, has never received it's due.  Koehlen's
disc is worth owning in that it includes pieces that are not found
elsewhere and has informative, if confusingly translated, notes.  The
"Airplane Sonata" is common to most of these discs, and in this work, I
would like to include special mention of Schliermacher's effort- he really
seems to make the most of the Sonata's moody content and it's abrupt shifts
from gentle delicacy to white hot aggression.  There is actually more of
Antheil's piano music on CD then there ever was on LP, but one important
exception has to be made- a 1750 Arch recording of Antheil's 1933 piano
cycle "La Femme aux 100 Tetes" which stands as his most important piano
work.  I don't recall the pianist, but I remember hearing this important
record on radio in the 70s in it's entirety, and it was something very
special.  We can only hope that WEA or Wergo will put this back into
circulation.  In the meantime Verbit has made some excerpts available on
her collection, as has Koehlen on a CD called "Piano Pictures" (Col Legno
20010).

Of Antheil's seven Operas, there is currently nothing available.  In fact,
of all Antheil's vocal music, only "Fighting the Waves", the title track of
the Ensemble Modern CD is represented.  This performance was very favorably
reviewed in Gramophone; perhaps they can hear something I can't.  Martyn
Hill's singing was singled out for praise in that same review, but I found
him way, way over the top.  The instrumental tracks sound fine, but Hill's
pompous, overblown delivery ruins it for me.  Sometimes "Fighting the
Waves" is identified as an 'opera', but it is not, rather it is a cantata.
The most promising of Antheil's operas seem to be "Transatlantic" (1930),
"Helen Retires"(1933) and "Venus In Africa" (1951).  In the first instance,
the opera was a crashing success in Europe just before the rise of Nazism.
As such, you would think it tailor made for Decca's Entarte Musik product
line, but so far it has gone unrecorded.  Among other major unrecorded
Antheil works are his Concerti for Piano and Violin.  But by far the most
neglected of his oeurve is his Film Music.  From 1935 to his death George
Antheil composed or contributed to the scores of some thirty movies.
Outside of his novels, detective stories and newspaper writing, this was
Antheil's major source of revenue during this period, and the movie music
makes up the largest part of his overall output.  At one point there was a
Japanese CD of the soundtrack to "The Pride and the Passion", a fine score
which again expresses his interest in South American and Mexican themes.
This is now gone, and so far nothing else has surfaced.  Antheil's
futuristic style served him well as a composer for the movies.  It is also
in his movie music that his command of melodic material and interest infolk
motifs is perhaps best realized.  One outstanding soundtrack is that
composed for "Daughter of Horror" (aka "Dementia, 1953).  As this
low-budget noir thriller is virtually silent, the soundtrack is continuous
except for one break.  It echoes Stravinsky, futurism, and "happy"
atmosphere music all mixed up into a dizzying stew of disparate elements,
in keeping with the unconventional film it supports.  It is, perhaps, the
longest continuous soundtrack ever written for a horror movie.  If this is
any indication of the possible quality of the work of his other film music,
there may be a lot of unexplored territory here that is well worth
reviving.  With such a large and extensive output, and a figure of such
considerable stature among American composers, why is it that his work is
not more often revived and performed? Among the daunting challenges which
tend to keep performers away from Antheil's music is the matter that very
few of his printed scores are engraved.  Most were taken directly off fair
copies in the composer's own exceptionally tidy hand.  The shortcoming of
this becomes immediately apparent on closer study.  Antheil's predilection
for rectangular noteheads leads to a problem of determining whether a given
note is supposed to fall on a line or a space.  In early scores, Antheil
isn't terribly clear about tempo indications.  Often the instruction
"accelerando" is given at the front where the tempo is normally placed.
While this seems to indicate that the piece is supposed to gain speed as it
goes along, it doesn't tells us how fast we are supposed to be going when
we get it started.  This isn't helped by that fact that seems to be not a
single surviving recording of Antheil playing his own piano music.  The
early scores are also vague about dynamics, phrasing and other important
details.  There is also the matter of Antheil's confusion in regard to
cycles.  For some reason he was incapable of keeping track of where he was
in a particular mode of expression.  While his numbered symphonies run to
six, there are actually nine, with two different symphonies designated as
"No.  3".  While he has perhaps a dozen piano works designated as
"Sonatas", not all are numbered, and in some instances two or three bear
the same number.  Also, "The Airplane", designated as "Sonata No.  2" in
all cases, seems to actually be "No.  1", unless the real "No.  1" was some
juvenile effort which no longer survives.  The notoriety surrounding
"Ballet Mecanique" and his reputation as music's 'bad boy' haunted Antheil
for his entire life.  He found it difficult to get his works programmed and
was completely shunned by the CM establishment, despite major commisions
from conductors such as Stokowski, Koussevitsky, and Monteux.  Ironically,
Antheil had no problem accessing the people at the top of the CM hierarchy;
it was the people "in the middle" who helped keep him at the bottom.  His
1947 autobigraphy "Bad Boy of Music" with its senationalism, gossip and
best seller status helped him only financially for a short time- it had a
devastating effect on his reputation which Antheil himself did not
forecast.  However, there is reason to hope that, at some point,
recognition will be made of his considerable achievements.  Just last year
the military acknowleged that the missle guidance system which he and Hedy
Lamarr devised in the 1940s is the very one which they now use.  It is also
reasonably acknowledged today by many experts on 20th Century music that
Antheil was the first modern Amercian composer to enjoy an international
reputation, even if they do not care for his music.  It will be up to
enthusiasts, like yourself, to raise Antheil's pyre once again.  I heartily
recommend Donna K.  Anderson's published worklist for the most extensive
study on his work, and his own book for an informative, if unreliable
account of his life.  Charles Amhirkanian has also contributed a study of
Antheil, but I don't know if it's published.  And perhaps, someday, you
will see my own website on Antheil- which is, sadly, constantly in a state
of preparation.

Uncle Dave Lewis
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