George Antheil Ballet Mécanique player rolls (MSS 61)

American, composer George Antheil began his music career in Europe under the patronage of Mary Louise Curtis Bok. Antheil's Ballet Mécanique was originally composed as the soundtrack to the film of the same title by French Dadaist painter Fernand Léger and cinematographer Dudley Murphy. However, the collaboration did not occur and Antheil presented the music as a standalone work which made its premiere in Paris in 1926.

The handwritten foreword on the first roll reads as follows:

"This is the first edition of the Ballet Mécanique and is limited to 20 copies. It is the 16 piano part alone none of the xylophones, drums, and other percussion being written into or cut into this part. These are the master rolls which run the 16 pianolas electrically from a common control (switching on 16 or 1, as might be necessary to the sonority) together with which the other percussion is synchronized.

Therefore in general I should like to have only musicians hear the rolls before their proper orchestral presentation, because only to a musician will certain long parts of repitition obviously and immediately appear as accompaniment to an invisible other percussion (i.e. xylophones) which does not appear in these rolls. In general I would also say that the parts of these rolls in which many notes are cut are solo parts, especially the beginning of roll III.

This edition is the "orchestra-piano" edition and cost 500 dollars to make. It was cut by Pleyel in July and August, 1925. The second edition of 400 rolls appears next month (January 1926) complete (with all the rest of the percussion cut in) but this will be simply for private and not public performance. Pleyels consider it worth while to place in their edition!

George Antheil, Paris 1925"