IF YOU GO
What: Ballet mécanique (robotic version).When: Saturday: hourly from 8-10 p.m.; 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays through Dec. 11Where: Wolfsonian-FIU Museum, 1001 Washington Ave., Miami BeachTickets: Dec. 1: $60; $50; Dec. 2-11: $7, $5Info: 305-531-1001; www.wolfsonian.orgWho: New World Symphony Percussion ConsortWhat:Ballet mécanique ('53 version)Where: 8 p.m. Friday, Lincoln Theatre, 541 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach.Tickets: $10Info: 305-673-3331; www.nws.eduWhen you enter a room for a concert and face three airplane propellers you know the composer means business.
George Antheil's Ballet mécanique is one of the most radical and celebrated compositions of the 20th century, but it remains a work more talked about than heard. It's called a ballet, but there are no dancers. It was written as a film soundtrack but was not performed with the movie. And the original version called for 16 player pianos, which were impossible to coordinate, and the scheme was abandoned before the premiere.
This strange, lost piece of musical history will be restored to life next weekend in two coordinated events. On Friday the New World Symphony Percussion Consort presents a performance of Antheil's 1953 version of Ballet mécanique. And Saturday night, as part of a weekend celebration of Dadaism, the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum will offer a unique take by a ''robot orchestra'' in performances repeated twice a day through Dec. 11.
The work's tangled history and scoring for bizarre forces, including those infamous propellers, mitigate against live performance, but the offbeat presentation fits the Wolfsonian's mission, says Cathy Leff, director.
''We're less interested in masterpieces than in what these objects say about the times in which they were created,'' Leff says. ``We like to use other ways to provide a greater context to the era in which these two very separate things are happening, this rise of Dadism and this Modernist aesthetic.''
Saturday's opening, timed to coincide with Art Basel the following week, is part of a broader effort by the museum to place two starkly contrasting 1920s arts movements in context with current Wolfsonian exhibits: the rise of French Modernism, as represented by the show Fashioning the French Interior: Pochoir Portfolios in the 1920s,and the extraordinary work of the anti-fascist German Dadaist, John Heartfield in Agitated Images: John Heartfield and German Photomontage 1920-1938.
The carnage and disillusionment that swept Europe in the wake of World War I provided the soil for radical art movements that upended convention, from Surrealism, Futurism and, especially, the Dadaists, as represented by Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Heartfield.
Vehemently anti-war and anti-convention, the Dadaists threw out the rules and responded with a kind of subversive, anarchic ''anti-art'' that attracted young rebels active in visual art, photography, literature and music.
Antheil was not a Dadaist, but within the roiling ferment of 1920s Paris, the young American expatriate was sympathetic to the edgy Dada and mechanistic Futurist movements, both of which influenced Ballet mécanique.
Antheil's music was written as a soundtrack for the surreal film of the same name by Fernand Leger and Dudley Murphy. But at 30 minutes, Ballet mécanique was almost twice as long as the work that inspired it. Leger's film was unveiled in 1924, but Antheil's score would not be heard until two years later.
Ballet mécanique was originally conceived for 16 player pianos (with four to a part), two standard pianos, three xylophones, seven electric bells, three airplane propellers, a siren, four bass drums and a tam-tam. Yet it quickly became apparent that the 16 player pianos could not be synchronized properly, and Antheil revised the work drastically for just one player piano and 10 regular pianos.
The work's mechanistic fury and outrageous orchestration earned Antheil immediate infamy. A 1927 performance at Carnegie Hall was so disastrous that Ballet méecanique was banished from concert halls for six decades. Antheil revised it in 1953 for a version scored for four pianos, four xylophones, two electric bells, two propellers, timpani, glockenspiel and assorted percussion. More concise at around 16 minutes, this arrangement is heard most often and is the version the New World will present Friday night.
It was not until 1999 that Antheil's original version was performed at Carnegie Hall after computer technology finally made its daunting synchronization possible.
Paul D. Lehrman, a former rock musician, documentary- film composer, and teacher of computer music who has a ''jones for technology,'' is in charge of the mechanized performances at the Wolfsonian.
Professor and coordinator of music technology at Tufts University, Lehrman came to Ballet mécanique through its computer and technological possibilities. The task of resurrecting Antheil's original scoring with Yamaha Disklaviers and automated robotics appealed to him greatly.
''It brings together everything I've ever done professionally,'' Lehrman says. ``I've played the piano, composed computer music, conducted and taught technology.''
The mechanical performance is a creative partnership with Eric Singer, director of the dauntingly titled League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR), who devised the mechanical devices that will ''play'' the instruments. The men jointly designed the propellers, and Lehrman will ''conduct'' his robot orchestra through a MIDI system from his Mac laptop.
While he admires the audacity and technological challenge of keeping the multiple forces synchronized, Lehrman is ambivalent about Antheil's music. ''A friend of mine came up with the perfect word for Ballet mécanique,'' he says. 'My friend Otto said, `Paul, this piece is so punitive.' ''
Similar to the Leger film, the work is an anarchic mélange, a musical snapshot of its day that includes jazz, ragtime, industrial noises and musical quotations from Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. ''There's so much going on in it,'' Lehrman says. ``It's a real kitchen-sink piece.''
Bringing Ballet mécanique to life has not been without its occasional electronic malfunctions. ''We did blow up a couple of Disklaviers,'' Lehrman says. ``We've caused a couple overheated solenoids. We've done some serious damage to a couple pianos because of the incessant pounding.''
Somewhat surprisingly, for a man reviving a celebrated historical work, Lehrman takes a decidedly non-purist view. At the museum's request, his Wolfsonian version will run just 11 minutes, even shorter than the 1953 arrangement. ''We didn't want to terrify anybody,'' Lehrman says. ``It's a hard thing to sit through. There's a lot of repetition, and it goes on and on and on.''
Leff says this work from the self-styled ''Bad Boy of Music'' perfectly fits the political and socially-minded art of the Wolfsonian.
''We're interested in the history of technology and how the machine modernized the world and what it made possible,'' she says. ``The piece really connects and helps people understand the richness of cultural activity in Europe during this time.''
