One can go a lifetime without ever hearing a live performance of George Antheil's Ballet mecanique. Yet last weekend concertgoers were able to sample two very different versions of one of the 20th century's most infamous musical works.
In a fine example of cultural cooperation the Wolfsonian museum and the New World Symphony coordinated separate takes on Antheil's over-the-top Ballet mecanique. On Friday night the New World Symphony Percussion Consort presented a live performance of the 1953 version, and Saturday the Wolfsonian unveiled an automated ''robotic'' performance, which can be heard daily at 1 and 4 p.m. through Dec. 11.
Inspired by the contemporary Dada and Futurist art movements, Ballet mecanique remains one of the most audacious of all compositions. Written in 1924 as an intended soundtrack to Fernand Leger's surrealist short film of the same name, Antheil's work was scored for a thunderous percussion ensemble including 16 player pianos, bass drums, xylophones, bells, sirens and three airplane propellers. The music was too long for Leger's film, and debuted separately in 1926, where a riot ensued, earning Antheil the moniker, ''Bad Boy of Music.'' Ballet mecanique entered musical history as a famous curio, often mentioned but rarely performed.
The composer never heard his first version due to the impossibility of synchronizing 16 player pianos, but computer technology has made it possible to achieve something close to Antheil's original vision. Saturday's automated ''performances'' were realized by composer and self-confessed techno geek Paul D. Lehrman and robotic designer Eric Singer.
Even here there are compromises: Lehrman's edited version runs around 13 minutes, about half the length of the original score; industrial fans stood in for the propellers; and just eight varied Yamaha Disklaviers were employed due to space limitations. There are no ''robots'' as such; solenoid-controlled hammers ''play'' the percussion instruments at the speed and volume indicated via laptop computer.
Even without human musicians, this literal Ballet mecanique kicked up plenty of sonic fury, the narrow sixth-floor atrium gallery resounding with pounding unison keyboards, brutal rhythmic force, snatches of Stravinsky, and ear-piercing sirens. Many of the opening-night guests availed themselves of the free earplugs, but this outrageous work is best experienced in unsafe mode, where its mechanistic ferocity and riotous noise can make full, deafening impact.
Ironically, the automated rendition seemed to provide more of the intended force and bombast than the live performance of Ballet mecanique heard Friday at the Lincoln Theatre, in part due to a misconceived presentation.
Scored for 15 players and ''just'' four pianos and large percussion, Antheil's retooled 1953 version is more concise. The New World Percussion Consort performed with a video accompaniment by Clyde Scott that freely manipulated images from the original Leger film. Projected on the back wall during the performance, Scott's version chops up, accelerates and manipulates the already surreal images to ''fit'' the music of the revised version.
While it's fascinating to glimpse Leger's once-outre Futurist and Dada images, there are crucial problems with this mixed-media approach. First, Antheil's 1953 Ballet mecanique is a concert piece that was never meant to be performed with Leger's short or any other film. Secondly, as is inevitable with these kind of initiatives, the massive images attract the eyes more than the music does the ears, with the result of pushing the live performance into the background. Finally, Scott's music-video approach seemed too self-conscious and silly in its trickery and merely served to visually upstage the musicians.
Michael Linville and the New World Percussion Consort presented a worthy, well-prepared performance, though one that sounded rather cautious and could have used greater volume and cumulative punch.
The first half proved more compelling. In fact, after the titanic force of the opening work, Xenakis' Persephassa, Antheil's Ballet mecanique sounded almost quaint.
Written in 1972, Persephassa was inspired by the legend of Persephone and calls for six percussionists with varied instruments arranged in a circle to a numerologically conceived pattern. Linville and the players wore headsets with a ''click track'' to keep the competing rhythms and tempos from going off the rails.
Beyond its technical specifications, the Greek composer's music seems to conjure up elements of his country's long history, moving in a kind of ethnographic progress from loud drumming to wooden percussion and clangorous metal. Primitive and incantatory, Persephassa seems as much ancient ritual than music, with a sense of lost time and tectonic plates shifting. Like many of Xenakis's works, Persephassa goes on too long but the sonic tumult, astounding clamor and extraordinary force and precision of the New World percussionists made a powerful case for this strange, compelling music.
