12 rue de l'Odeon,

Enhhhhhp++

Am seeing Szigetti tonight at 9.
Have. drunk N.C.B.'s tea three times, and got the Dukes etc. lined up
for B.Mec. NooEZ IS ...I've got THE MONEY, wich is the first thing.
Likewise they will subscribe money for the seats...all of 'em.
The Xiliphony is pruned clean...I QUARANTEE the biggest scandal of the
day...however, wait until you hear yourself this spring.
Physically I seem to be approaching the perfect organism...in a word,
for the first time since days long ago in Philadelphia, I seem clapless.
My face acquires the noble contours of the Arrow Collar reclames. I
seem to be steering towards a nobler old age than was promised. Am
pending all of my spare money buying condroms and sticking them about
in reserve places. My suits each contain one (I have two suits) while
in my drawer lies a hyperdromic with a boxfull of anti-toxin. I am
even thinking of getting a microscope. I don't know how I shall ever
get along without the doctors...I've become so used to 'em, and do
you know they were such a consolation....

Just think what fun I'll have watching for the little bugs to reappear
during all the years, however.

The opera progresses. Orchestras and highly augmented phoneygraphs
both play simultaneously THE SAME THING...the orchestra stops, and one
discovers the xxxxxxxx phoneygraph HAS BEEN PLAYING SOMETHING ELSE.
All of the combinations to make your belly give up. Collosal orchestra
for a change...mostly mechanical. Like Ulysses...encyclopediac.
Entirely different from Bal. MeK. Must come down in June to show you.
After the Bal& Meca.

Stuckenschmidt is here. He offers me 4 sold-out concerts for Hamburg
Please put me in touch with Olga immediately without fail, I wanted to
write you yistaday about it. Likewise I got another offer for 5000
dollars for 2 concerts in America end of June...this time not from
Hanson. Can't we do something for Stuckenschmidt. He's the most talented
guy I ever seen. Introduction is what he needs here. He writes critiques
for a living, and is an elegant and intelligent German...and extra
German. His mother is a Hohenzollern.... his father the general
nearest Paris in 1914,... honest!

12 rue de l'Odeon
Paris,

Dear Ezra,

Please get me straight. This is the last time I
am ever gonna mention Stravinsky's name in my life in this
connection. I AM NOT GONA REVISE THE 1ST SONATA. I NEVER
SAID I WAS GONA CUT THE STRAWINSKY OUT OF IT. I simply wanted
to make some things in the mss clearer, that would not affect
the sound of it.

STRAWINSKY COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE FIRST SONATA IF HE TRIED.

That's just all there is to it.

HAS A SINGLE WORK OF STRAWINSKY ANY GUTS... ANYMORE????????

If you answer that question we will stop the discussion.

Everything is justified by its end. Where I come from
don't make any difference. It's what I AM. And I AINT
STRAWINSKY.

Say "rest in peace" in Latin, for me.

I have received Walsh's letter, and have asked him if he
wants to print the Sonata Sauvage... 26 pages, ... and the
first example of percussive music (now much in vogue, in
"Noces", in Hommeger's new pianoforte sonata, and still
younger youngsters) in its pure, clear, and original state
existing. In case too much I will print something else.

I enclose a carbon copy of a new manifest to be published in
Querschnitt.

My four-hour opera is very much influenced by yours. Same technique.

What about score? Have you had it copied, to give producers
glance, for production, which I am certain can be arranged.
Must HAVE SCORE.

3.

My forms are the first complete forms that have come out of
the only forms out of which musical forms can be made...TIME.
Is not TIME, and TIME ALONE the SOLE canvas of music? Notes,
vibrations, and sound are merely our drawing pencils...our
paint-box. Can you dare to deny that TIME is the sole canvas
of music? Can you dare to deny that the forms come out of the
canvas, and not the crayon? Can you dare to deny that the crayon
is merely the human instrument for indicating the spaces
EXISTING ONLY UPON THE CANVAS...BEFORE THEY ARE INDICATED.

Can you any longer dare to say that music is made of TONE and
not of TIME.

Will you any longer write music in which TIME is merely a by-product of TONALITY, or TONE.

Again I ask you...do you dare to deny that the canvas of music
is TIME and not TONALITY...do you mean to say that the very
spaces in which you are working, and the finished space which
is your goal...does not interest you fundamentally, above all
other things.

Does not its plan, and its musical phenomena in which it differs
from ordinary TIME...in a word, the root of its miracle, the
secret of its existence, the form of its life, the cool beauty
of its plan and mathematics, the tension of its spaces, the
beating of our hearts (for our hearts do not FEEL...they BEAT),
in a word the very REASON of music, the ultimate FORM...does
not this interest you, EXCEPT AS A BY-PRODUCT.

IMPROVISORS!

"Composers" are those who sit down in the studio, work with pen and ink, and can choose, think, and reconstruct...

"Performers" are those who sing a title for you. To "compose"...

...is to "embrace" the existence, one's own...

As I have already said, my Ballet Mecanique has under no
circumstances, and at no point, a single motion or movement that
does not come out of TIME.

For the first time on earth TIME have been USED under its
fundamental principles in the single art in which it is fundament-
ally conceived...or better, in the single art which is fundament-
ally conceived out of TIME.

TIME is inflexible, rigid, beautiful!

TIME is the very stuff out of which life is made.

My Ballet Mecanique has a connection to life than any of the tonal music that I write, but it is a musical and not a literary connection.

In my Ballet Mecanique, you, for the first time, music hard and beautiful as a gem.

The Ballet Mecanique differs from the work of every living composer in that it tries to attain a single and gigantic form. All others simply write pieces that last only a few moments one after the other. They write suites, and call them sonatas, operas, symphonies...all these parades are of no consequence to me.

Some time in the future we will have forms which will not last a half hour, nor an hour, but eight hours, sixteen hours, or twenty-four days. This is not romantic. The reason lies in the fact that we have discovered THE NEW AND TRUE DIMENSION OF MUSIC, AND ITS BASIC PRINCIPLES WHICH INSURE LARGER AND ALMOST ENDLESS FORMS.

The Ballet Mecanique is the first piece IN THE WORLD to be conceived in one piece without interruption, like a solid shaft of steel.

I am now writing a work which is four hours long and without interruption or the break of a second's time.

After that I shall write one which is ten hours long. I started with mechanism and pieces that were only a minute long.

Even those produced hysteria and riots. The time was too short, and the nuclei too explosive. A few concerts throughout Europe and I retired to my laboratory. Now I hope to present you not with an explosion, but the FOURTH DIMENSION...THE FIRST PHYSICAL REALIZATION OF THE FOURTH DIMENSION.

I am not presenting you with an abstraction. I am presenting you with a PHYSICALITY LIKE SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.

[1925]

12 rue de l'Odeon,
Paris, France.

Dear Ezra,

Please excuse me for not having written so long...
I've had a little vacation, and have been so damned busy.

I've got a hell of a long letter to write you, with a hell
of a lot of important details, and having no gifts for
condensation in writing, like youse have, getting all your
ideas over with a wang in a little space, with merely a
series of grunts and howls, etc. For Christ's sake, have
a little patience with this ppistle.

In the first place MRS. BOK'S COME ACROSS STRONG WITH 7000
DOLLARS. That is the first fact of importance in this long
letter of many important facts. That means this:

1. That Olga and I will be able to make a guaranteed trip of Europe, enhancing our reputations here. This oughtn't to cost more than a 1800 dollars.

2. That I will be able to publish all of my work.

3. That I will be able to produce my opera here as I want it.

The sole conditions attached to this money is that it is NOT
to be used for living expenses: that it is to be used to
produce (concerts) and publish my work to date: and that it is
to be used, under no circumstances for concerts in America, for
a good reason, too long to go into here.

Of this I receive 1000 dollars upon the 1st of October, and
6000 dollars upon the 15th of November. Mrs. Bok never
breaks her word.

This means that I must get into touch with Olga immediately.
MOVE NO. 4 for YOU.... get me into touch immediately with
Olga, if you have her address. Tell her she should write
immediately to me at the Grand Hotel Moderne, rue Constantine,
Tunis, Tunis, Africa.

2.

ITEM NO. 3: In my concert travels about Europe for the almost immediate future, I want a score of " Le Testament". I am absolutely certain I can get it done in Vienna, if you let Kiesler, who I ASSURE you can do it, do the staging, (that's not the directing). He has told me himself that he would do it. Everybody understands French in Vienna, and there is a mutual sympathy there. As for myself, I am invited by the city of Vienna for an official concert there. Since I published my famous "potency" insult of Vienna' Schönberg Schönberg has had to get married, and there has been something in the jest that has spread. Doesburg made a hell of a scandal there a few months ago, you know, by protesting from a box at a Schönberg premier. The next night he read my manifest in German. Sic. there is not a single Vienniese in Paris, and there are a lot for the arts decoratif, who hasn't heard of me. And I have the honor to be hated by Mr. Schönberg, and detested by him. Sic. I am going to Vienna upon its own costs, to prove it. Therefore, why not "US". Sic. take your score to a copyist immediately.

Item No. 3. FINANCIAL. Although I am good for 17000 francs upon October 1st, for musical productions, and 8000 from Bob MacAlmon, again this year, for living expenses (that's his share.....Lady Ellerman contributes another 8000 ) I have no ready money immediately. I have a lot of concerts to play, and in addition my Ballet Mecanique, and my opera to direct. I've only had five days vacation, and it AINT enough. I'm beginning to feel rotten again in hot Paris. So I'm taking a chance, and going Monday night to Tunis, sure. Tunis is the best place for me, and I feel best there. I'm going to take a hell of a vacation this time. I've gone through enough, and I think I can afford myself one. I won't be back to Paris, until the end of September. I wonder if you could undertake to send me 1000 francs to Tunis, as soon as you could. I am going with no money, almost, at all. This time I am going alone, also. But I just must go, I gotta take the bit in my teeth now and strike out, otherwise I won't be fit for this autumn, and then everything will go to hell again. If I die in Tunis of starvation, or here of the strain, its all the same. I wrote Sylvia for some money, but she answered this morning that she's up in the mountains, with no way of getting it to me until she gets back, Sept. 1st. I'm asking my stingy and unreliable parents to send some, and Bob, but I don't know where he is. God knows when he'll get my letter. I wish that you would send some, if you got it. I know anyhow you would be punctual. Otherwise I'll eat on the hotel and wait until Sept. 1st.

Item NO. 4. On October 2nd. I'll pay you back this persnul loan. At the same time I'll foot the bill for my copy of "Le Testament," which I want anyhow, and from which we can play the thing in Vienna. Under no circumstances delay the copying of this score for me a moment. I want a copy for myself

3.
under any conditions. I'm entitled to it: I worked on it.
Please give it to me. As I said before, the copying of a score
I wrote down and edited, comes out of the Mr.W. Bok copy money
for publishing. As for my 1000 francs, I'm sorry I can't give
it back any sooner than Oct. but I just can't endanger that
7000, which yet to me is unbelievable, by wiring for an
advance. In this case I just have to sit still and wait for
it elegantly.

Item No 5. I do wish that you would write Miss Barney DIRECTLY
and ask her in some tactful way, if she wouldn't give Pleyel's
the remaining 5000 francs to be paid upon my Ballet Mecanique
Rolls. Quite a number of months ago Miss Barney came to me
very enthusiastic, saying that you had wrote her about the
Ballet Mecanique, and that she would produce it with her
friends, subscribing the amount. I played some of it by hand
then, for her and the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, and they
were very enthusiastic, and talked about immediate performance.
But the rolls had to be cut, and in talking with Pleyels, who
seemed very inclined to do it for nothing, I discovered that,
SHOULD I OWN the rolls, I could get enormous sums for the rights
of performance...FOR THE IDEA OF 16 PIANOS IS A SENSATIONAL
ADVERTISEMENT WITH PLAYER PIANO COMPANYS. I will discuss this
idea afterwards in another item. The main thing here is that
Miss Barney doesn't know this: and I didn't want to ask her
for 10000 francs, which is the price of the Ballet Mecanique
rolls, which I determined to own myself, because I thought
that I would need the 4000 francs which she promised me, for
its production. Since that, however, production has been
assured me in the Champs Elysees, under the best possible
directorship, the Ciné Club of France, who communicated with
Logen.

Inasmuch as it will be under her
Patronage anyway, and that of the
Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, I
don't think that it is unfair to ask her
5000 francs - or 1000 more than she
originally offered - straight out of hand.
In return for this offer she hand me at a
lot of her Friday afternoons and I want
my pay.

I paid the other 5000 francs myself
out of my own money.

Will you please write her and say

[1925]

12 rue de l' etc.

Dear EZZZ rawh

Preface to this letter is merely that I am trying, by means of typewriting propaganda to stir up interesting in a music-publishing society, for more important works (for instance Benét-Méchin, Pound, and Antheil) then are otherwise being printed...AND THAT I DON'T NEED ANY MONEY...I AINT STARVING...etc...and I DON'T WANT NONE. I am sacrificing all thought of fleecing these people for a personal gain...it is for the society THE SOCIETY alone that I am interested. And a company means business, not charity.

Our small propaganda runs to practical purposes. I am sure that if you try to get enough WORKABLE COPIES out to the singers your expenses for the parts will run up to 4000 francs. In France, I mean, it might be cheaper in Italy. To produce that opera you need at least

1 orchestral score (finished)

1 reduction of the score with to piano accompaniment, for the singer to study...or about half the pages of the score. 6 copies for the leading parts at 600 francs per...= 3600 francs

1 complete orchestral parts and material = 2000 francs

or 5600 at the minimum. for that you can get the orchestral score printed so that you could send copies of it to people interested in its production...as many as you liked, and have the reduction in piano score printed too. All you would need would be 2000 francs extra for the material, which would have to be copied by hand, or printed, line for line, very cheaply out of the score...as many as you like

Which would you rather 5600 or 7600, or less.

PROPAGANDA

2.

that's all

The news is that everybody wants to produce the "Ballet Mecanique" and nobody wants to give enough (that is offers enough) money to give it. Miss Barney gave me 500 francs as a beginning, to get the thing copied, and then went down to Italy, or somewhere. I think that she has returned...I must go to see her. The sum is, however, away too small. The composer's League in America insist upon producing it next season. But I have to send them the score...I hate to do this, because it is to go into the hands of a committee of American composers, who meanwhile, will ape the whole style of it (completely wrong of course, but nevertheless to a stupid American audience, efficiently enough to rob me of the added effect of novelty when it is produced.) After this plagiarism stuff, I've not been keen on another concert... UNTIL I CAN GET EVERY NOTE THAT I HAVE WRITTEN PUBLISHED.

So many tons of "ultra modern" sonatas are published... everything and everybody is published except me. When I think upon the fact that I am not in with any other school of music, I can easily understand the reason. Slivinsky SAYS he is going to publish immediately the 2nd Sonata. But WILL he? I dunno.

I only know that I must publish everything that I write immediately. IMMEDIATELY with the dateson it RIGHT AFTER I WRITE IT.... if I have to do it upon my own expense. It must be done... it is an important thing today that people have this music in their hand, can study it, and see the dopyright, printed plainly down at the bottom of the page.

I know that it would be absolutely futile to produce a single new work, especially my ballet mecanique, which is full of inventions that will be sure to be stupidly copied, but neverthe less bitched, unless the original is there...SO THAT THEY CAN COPY IT DIRECT AND LEARN IN THE RIGHT WAY. Then I get the credit for it, and they advance themselves along further without pretending that it is their eventual or original thing.

I will not give another new work from Manuscript. Since the experience of the last two years, for my own protection, I shall insist rather upon printing WITH THE DATES ON...just like Strawinsky does... before a work is produced. Strawinsky would not THINK of giving a work before he at least knew that it was in the press and would appear one or two weeks exactly after the concert....just at the critical time when there would be a demand, and when copies sold THEN would sell other copies for months..years.

I have now my gigantic Ballet Mecanique, and an opera which lasts three hours finished. I will not give either one until they are printed. It is absolute madness to go on this way any further. I have gone through enough, and I refuse to go

3.

to go on any further.

Now you will ask me, why not go to Chester and Col. or
Universal Edition, etc. BECAUSE...THESE SONS SA BITCHES
ONLY PUBLISH ABOUT THREE YEARS AFTER THE GET THE MANUSCRIPT.

ALL BIG PUBLISHERS ARE ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. Strawinsky
was first given out, and timely and promptly by the Russian
Music Co. because the financier was a friend and believer
in Strawinsky. I have no friends who are music publishers.
The composers they do have about them prejudiced the editors
against me when they ask their advice about something new.

These mediocre, but well-ensconced, composers did everything
they could against Stravinsky, so that he had a hell of a
job to get in with a publisher who paid him something, which
the Russian Music Co. does not.

It's all absolutely nuts. If one wants to do anything worth
while today, one can rely upon it that one cannot get published,
only the in-betweeners... the would-be-ultras get published.
The style, in a word.

I think the only solution is to form a private publishing co.
The following things must be published without further delay.

"Cyclops" opera

Ballet Mecanique cinemas

2 Violin and piano sonatas

6 Piano sonatas

the 2nd Symphony (for five instruments)

the 3d Symphony (for eighty instruments)

the last five items particularly immediately. Of course
Slavinsky says he want to publish the II violin sonata...a
drop in the bucket.

The II violin sonata costs 4000 francs (very good printing in
Vienna)...for everything BUT the opera, it would cost about
30,000 francs...or a fund of 1800 dollars to publish all the
Antheil works to date...(I do not count my little 4handed things
songs, etc. which I will never publish, or at any rate not until
a very long time from now).

I am sure that if other people contribute, we can depend upon
a very heavy sum from Mrs. Bok. 1000 dollars, at the least.
But I doubt if she'd give the outright sum. It's her way.

4

I'm going to write to Bob MacAlmon, and to Mrs. Bok, and also talk to Miss Barney, and tell them everything I'm telling you. It is absolutely important that a new publishing company be opened up...without it, there is absolutely no use in going on. To have a copyist make two or three extra copies is just as expensive as having thousands of copies printed...for instance, I learn that to copy the intricate score of the Ballet Mecanique costs about 3000 francs (!!) and to print it would only cost about 4500 and on has hundreds of copies to send all over, and then it is copyright, and the date, etc.

For instance, I've made some of the most important musical experiments of the age, experiments which have had the honor of influencing at least two of the best youngest composers living, and being stolen from by the greatest composer of the age, and making another great composer in central Europe compose his last works with more rhythm than formerly, etc., etc., etc. riots, etc., etc. Its all here in manuscript to be robbed by any idiot who wants to attend my concerts...or to whom, I whom am always too talkative and willing to argue with musicians. My name and standpoint is never discussed in the musical journals, because everybody else swipes my ideas. I was one of the very first players in a jazz orchestra in America... a real negro orchestra, where I was the only white. I almost invented the madder jazz, for our organization became the first famous one, and was extensively copied. I was the first in America to draw attention to jazz as being the only folk music we had...some of the finest in the world... they have swiped that idea and hopelessly muddled it. Whoever read my name in the Dial with all the swell stuff they write about it nowadays. I played and wrote jazz before the SIX ever heard of it. I was seventeen then and thrown out on my own hook. My Valse Profane was taken over to Europe by Aurthur Rubenstein who paid for the copying himself, and showed the copy around here. Valse Profane, 1918. Strawinsky's piano-reg-music, the same year...but several months later. 1921 the first percussion totally percussive ideas for piano. Actually played in recital in England in 1922 (April). Met Strawinsky December, 1922. In 1922 published manifests "Musical Mechano"...have since had the pleasure to see every one of my ideas published under another name. I don't give a damn, as long as the music is on the market. But I ought to get some credit for it.

I'm getting tired of working for other people. THE PEOPLE IN GENERAL CAN NEVER BE SURE IT WAS ME UNLESS THEY GOT THE NOTES AT EVERY MUSIC STORE. Then it's just final.

My opera exceeds in bulk the whole sum and total of the works preceding it. It is also, by far the most radical, the most epically destructive work ever yet conceived in music. I know that eventually the break is complete, and that this is what I have always wanted most of all to do. In sheer bulk, in sheer conception, it exceeds anything I've ever done...the machinery

["5.", "is colossal but economical...it is not made in such a way so that its cost will be overpowering, nevertheless it is as expensive as OTHER WORKS OF RODTEN COMPOSERS FOR VAST SYMPHONY (HORNS ???) ORCHESTRA WHO GET PERFORMED ALL THE TIME.", "IT doesn't need to get printed immediately, but I do have to establish a point in space by the publication of the other works. Just like Joyce did by publishing Portrait of The Artist and Bubliners. It shows where you begin and that you have done the thing first, and the rest of you that follows is on a firm basis.", "MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAM

12 rue de l'Odeon
Paris, France.

Dear EzzROAR,

Here's it:

**1st Symphony, written 1918 — 1921.** Announced by Stokowski for season 1922, but for some reason never played. Played by Schultz-Dornberg with the Berlin Philharmonie November 27th, 1922, at the Philharmonie Hall in Berlin, for the first time. **XIXTH CENTURY**
Afterwards repeated in Berlin under other conductors.

**Piano Concerto, first written as piano sonata in 1919, recomposed in 1921.** Played as piano sonata in London, June 22nd, 1922, and as piano concerto November 25th, 1922, with the Berlin Philharmonie.

**Serpent Mecanique: written in Benardsville in 1921, registered for piano in Germany in 1922 (privately)...predestines whole present percussive technic. (short piece) Never played publicly.**

**2nd Piano Sonata: written in Trenton, N.J. 1921.** (As a matter of fact it antedates the 1st Sonata.) First complete rhythmic and formal expression. Percussive technic. First played in London, June 22nd, at Wigmore Hall, 1922. Utterly misunderstood.

**1st Piano Sonata: written in Germany, Berlin, July 1922, to December, 1922.** More sure organization of elements discovered in 2nd (airplane) sonata. Replaced as "1st" sonata, the piano sonata I had orchestrated, and which had become the Piano concerto. First performed Jan. 1st, Berlin, 1923. First performance called "Sonata Sauvege".

**3d Sonata, called "death of the machines", and lasting only a minute.** Nevertheless in four complete movements. Published in Transatlantic Review...Feb. 1924. Written on January 8th, 1923. First Played in Dresden January 22, 1923.

**4th Sonata.** Written in February, jazz, reflex of Berlin of 1922. First Played in Budapest, March 3d, 1923.

**5th Sonata, April, 1923.** XIXTH CENTURY never played in public.

**6th Sonata, May, 1923.** (likewise Berlin) called "Woman sonata" also never played in public.

12 rue de l'Odeon

Dear Unkel,

Keep cool, and don't call me all them there hard names.
1st. Mrs. Bok, has not only promised, but actually sent some of the
money, which means that she will send it all. Don't you worry about
that. She's promised it...and there's always an IF insinuated, if
not actually written in a promise of any kind from rich people. There's
just a little delay tha's all, and I wanted to have you hurry 'er up.

There's just nothing for me to do except finish what she originally
said she would like.... a symphony for the Philadelphia orchestra. It
OUGHT to have been done two months ago....but it wasn't. Hence the
delay.

Mrs. Bok promised me the money, and there was no CASTE IRON"IF" in
her letter, NEITHER was there a caste iron promise that I would get
the money the following week. She sent me 1000 on account. That
ought to prove that the "IF" is not so caste iron as you seem to
fear. She simply said in her letter she would like a work for large
orchestra, preferably a symphony, for the Philadelphia orchestra to
play in order to"judge"my work, which she hasn't heard in four years.
(She heard the GOLDEN BIRD and the old lady was wild about it...really
liked it)......she didn't say to judge whether she would give me the
money. If I said so to you, that is simply the way I took it, but it

2

doesn't necessarily need to mean that. Another thing, I know Mrs.
Bok never goes back upon her promises, and this is a definite promise
of 6000 dollars and over. I haven't written until recently that I
need the rest....in a word, I haven't ASKED for the rest simply
because

1. THE SONATA IS NOT YET FINISHED TO SEND OVER....THE EDITION.

2. MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL THE SYMPHONY IS NOT COMPLETELY WRITTEN TO SEND OVER.

We've been both working like hell, I composing, and the printers setting up my sonata, and me correcting proof sheets. All this
since Jan 1st !!

Hell, naturally I should have given the autograph to you in August, but
how in hell should I know that Carish does other printing than from
facsimile, and this one had to be printed. So I took it to Slivinsky,
to whom I had promised it, anyhow, for over a year. That was in
August. Slivinsky's financial troubles, as usual, did not permit
him to work upon it, upon his own hook, and they didn't start until
I came back in October, when he brought the matter up, late, and I
thought that the work was already finished. I expected to contribute
something, but not all. That however is a long story. I'm sorry
that I did so, but I agreed to produce one violin sonata with Slivinsky
many months before we ever talked about it. All of the rest of my
printing I shall naturally have done with Carish.

Its all a long story....too long for here, anyway now the long 80 page
sonata is finished, corrected, and ready to go into edition, and thence
to Mrs. Bok. Likewise the symphony is almost completely sketched, and

3

I am working day and night upon it. I am keeping a copy, and I want Carish to print both it, and the Ballet Mecanique immediately. I shall send it for estimate immediately....just as soon as the symphony is finished.

I have just reread Mrs. Bok's letter. There is no if in it. There is the promise, and the desire to hear a symphony of mine upon the Philadelphia orchestra.....to"judge" my music. That annoyed me because I regard America as one sheer shaft of misjudgement, and it also has upset me, because I have been getting nervous that I haven't the symphony finished.

Its just simply nervousness, my writing to Mrs. Bok, and asking you to write her, because the symphony isn't finished. Hell, I'm getting kind of overwrought by work. I have certain moments of lucidity.

Hell, yes, send her all of that stuff, and say that you will send her an estimate, if she likes the samples....mention my works that ought to be printed right away. I really can't send you anything until two or three weeks from now, but it will take longer than that to get an answer, and it will start things frying.

Meanwhile I do not think that horrification set in because of the little symphony, because I just received my monthly check from Mrs. Bok (I forgot to tell you that she has...OUTSIDE of the 6000.... promised me living expenses INDEFINITELY and consequently a fat little check arrives every month since that famous letter I wrote you about. Her secretary sends it. I enclose you the very last

4

proof of the fact. So that together with the 1000 on account looks
as if she means it. I just simply didn't ask her for any more of it
until January 5th, because I DIDN'T HAVE HER SYMPHONY READY, and I only
did so then because I recently have been kinda losing my nerve about
America, after all the recent disasters encountered there, which I
wrote you about.

I mean to say that I must send her that symphony as a mark of repect
and sedondly not ask for any more money until I do. I am going to
cable her not to send any letters or money until end of March, when
the symphony certainly will be there. I'll do this tomorrow, and meanwhile
write a letter to her which will more or less fix over my rather
acid one questioning the ability of anybody in America to judge my
music.

All this play upon the word "judge" is really only nerves. Hell,
Ezra, I never did have no Goddamn sense, why in hell do you expect some
now. I get ratty and nervous, and want to bite people's ears. And
with one or two catastrophes I get morbid and suspicious. Its the
German in me.

Hell, if you write at all, for crapsake don't make me nervous, and
pissy. Nevertheless all of your advice is now being followed, and
is of the first water.

Love to Dorothy.

GAWRGE

12 rue de l'Odeon

[1926]

Dear Unkel,

Just at present I am writing music in disgust. For the last three months I have been writing music in disgust, abandoning all other wordly pursuits, except eating sleeping, and the other.

Its all absolutely nuts anyhow. For instance, Whiteman's, upon whose ORDERED piece I spent nearly a month's time (Oct 6 to Nov. 2) and which is absolutely a crackerjack in the line of jazz....they no sooner got, than they sent right back. I don't know yet what their reason is......I don't think it was any diplomatic ones, as it is well-nigh impossible in New York, for them to have heard anything from Baldwin's, or Hanson....people in America is real business people and aint communicative. I just think the music (which is absolutely possible for their orchestra) just knocked 'em flat, bug-eved, and nutty. They aint never seen nothing like that before, and hope they never will again. Anyway "serious" (!) jazz is the style there now, and this aint in style. It aint "the music of America's future", so it's back. Meble it good then?

Its a rather good piece, and I rather like it. It has the 2nd Violin Snotty stopped, anyhow. The only thing in life that worries me is that I "improve with day from day".

I guess that I was rather gullible to think my music would slip over into America so easily. Why it took Strawinsky 13 years!!!

2

Number 2 is that Baldwin's have offered me a 15,000 dollar proposition for next season, but not upon official house paper, and signed only by "Ed.".....who is Edward Cushing, critic of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and member of the firm, incidentally the manager's and big buggaboo's friend, most intimate one. So I cable acceptance, away back in December, just like he told me, if the proposition suited me which it did. Nevertheless I also cabled politely asking for a neatly typed and fully signed contract.

Two months have passed, and I aint received the slightest reply despite all of my cables, which are several, asking what in hell is the matter. My reason for hurry is justified.....they want me to write a piano concerto, and I cant begin it at the last minute. I'd better write it months ahead, because if I know a thing has to be done in a few weeks, the ideas just don't come, and I turn out a piece of truck.

Number 3 is that Mrs. Bok has not yet replied. You know, when I aksed her last August for 6000 dollars, she replied, "yes" she would, but she first wanted to be certain that I WUZ the "great American musician of the future" without which " America is like a bell without a clapper" after which she would not only give me the rest of the sum (she sent 1000 dollars immediately) but stand behind me in the future, like the great musicians of the past was stood behind. She asked me to send over a work, to judge this. I sent over "Symphony for Five Instruments". It seems to me that this is very musical and not too awful. She sent 1000 dollars, as I sed, immediately, in September, (Sylvia got it) and as for me, I sent her the score

3

the minute I hit Paris, in October.

Well, there aint been no reply. I em wondering if HORRIFICATION occured. -> when the score arrive a was heard.

Now, it seemed a cinch to me that I WUZ the "great Mucian Musician of the future" and so I sent her the score as a mere detail to her signing the check, and began to plan what I would do with the money when it came.

It aint.

However, there aint been no refusal yet, either. So I have done the following things: I wrote a NEW string quartet (a new version of the one I did in June, which Cushing so much liked) which was given at Miss Barney's and which was a whizz, and knocked everbody right off their feet. This is called 1st String Quartet, my first successful one, and a thing of which I am very proud, for they are hard to write. I did this during two very very pressed weeks in December, working like a dog. Its rather a surprise its so good. Well, I'm sending a copy of that, and also have sent rolls of my Ballet Mecanique.

Now, a week and a half ago, getting restless, I did something rash. I wrote her a letter saying diplomatically that I didn't think that anyone living all of their life in Philadelphia are fitted to pass the last word upon the merits or demerits of anything really new. I asked her, not to judge upon HER OUN opinion, but upon European opinion like yours, and Benefit

4

Benoit-Mechin's, and a score of others (nowadays... years after the "Antheil, Harmony, etc" Book.!) which anyone with the least grain of intelligence would do, naturally, in America. But she's gone on Stokowski, the flashy orchestra director of the Philadelphia Symphony (he sticks his ars out like a Spaniard, because he thinks its CHIC) and believes everything he says. He's the bird she would call in for the ultimate opinion.

Now although he knows (hes seen it) the last music of Strawinsky
Ies Six, etc..you can judge his subtlty for yrself.

Wot I think is that it is now time for youse, Unkel, to write her
a WHALE of a letter, stating this point clearly. Don't name any
sums, don't talk about anything you know. Just talk about the
composer who should be STOOD behind fer the good of our CLAPLESS
America. Remember that her old man is Curtis, a d that that gang
run the LADIES home journal, and upon that general foundation you
can buldoze her all you want. Make her feel SHE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING
or that Stokowski really is not in it, without saying so. Waddathink.
Anyways the time seems opportune for dropping some kind of word.

No one should be able to make America feel its incompetency more than
you. And just in this case that's what is to be done. Don't be afraid.
Its only by bulldozing Mrs. Bok that I ever got anything out of her.
If you are kind with them sort, they never notice you.

NOW... what I'm doing is writing a Symphony. It is for an orchestra
of 60 men, and entirely new, absolutely new departure. I just started
it three weeks ago, and the first movement is finished.

5

It is the delicate green-pink-blue cat's nuts of a symphony. I must
have a playable symphony to send around and have played in Germany
and Paris, this season and next, and I'm ashamed of the old 1st
Symphony, and the Golden Bird. Premature, as everything predating
Sonata Sauvage is. Sonata Sauvage is my first big effort.

The parts of the Ballet Mecanique that has been played, has bowled
them all over. Benoit-Mechin (who according to Raymond Petite in
La Revue Musicale, ..."is easily the greatest talent of all of our (French)
younger composers") has come out in a leading review here and compared
me to Beethoven, using Ballet Mecanique as a basis. He says that in
power here is something of alike resemblance. La Revue Musicale has
also come out this month (Jan) and said the same thing.....that I
"evoke the formidable shadow of Beethoven." This will seem like
helpless crap to you, who hate, with reason, Beethoven. But nevertheless,
critically that, (with neo-classicism coming into style in criticism as
well as the arts) that is for the French pretty high. And it comes
from two fairly decent sources....La Revue Musicale has always been
an avant-garde Magazine.

I seed the T.Q. supplement, and am nuts about it. Its really wonderful,
ole Fadder, youse is always a bird, my ole Fadder.

As for the 1000 bucks, I spent about 500 of it having my scores all
copied. I need at least two copies, and parts of everything, which

6

is the least that every respectable musician should have. Its really
been a crime to have all my work here in this room in one copy with
a fire and open rate going all winter....and the same in the bookshop
below. I spent 100 dollars upon publicity in the Musical Courier,
an American publication, which is a blackmail sheet, under the impression
that I was going to America and would need it. Publicity needs to
begin early. Then I spent 100 dollars apx half my share, in a publishing
firm that wanted to ppint my 1st Violin snonatna. That is the usual
method with a beginner in Universal's edition...he stands some, if not
most of the cost of printing, being unknown. It seemed a good chance,
and they have methods of distribution. This si just an experiment,
I want to see my music...just one PIECE printed once. It is now being
finished. The one dedicated to Olga. Then 100 dollars went into
musical scores I have long and pressingly needed, and a victrola whereby
I can play all of the classical symphonic works, right here in my own
room. This is the solitary luxury I have afforded myself in years,
beyond my trip to Africa, which has made me healthy again, and allows
me to work like I never worked before, but the victrola has started
me off upon my own symphony. Anyway I use one in my opera Cyclops.

The way I feel now is....I'm not going to write any more long works
until I get a little more known in musical circles by my string-quartet
and my symphony, so that I can get support and money easier than I have
been able to.

By the way, you might tell Mrs. Bok that it is a shame that my music
here has to be paid-for by Europeans....Lady Ellerman, duchesse de
Clermont-Tonnerre, and Madame Dubost! The last two are the principles
in getting my Ballet Mecanique on.

Nevertheless its not on yet. So I'm writing music...in disgust. George

12 rue de l'Odeon

Dear Ezzer,

Last night at three o'clock I finished putting the last
metronone marking to my new "Symphony en Fa" after two months of sitting
up to six o'clock every morning on the bloody thing. After which, Böski,
and a girl friend of hers and me went out to Bd. Michel and ate some
eggs in celebration. This morning I'm waking up, and starting this
to you.

Here's the nooze.

1. Mrs. Bok gave me 2000 dollars again on account some weeks ago.

2. Guggenheim's have refused to give me anything. Officially rejected.
...as the letter says "your qualifications are not exactly of the
standard we require."

3. According to instructions I am giving a concert for the new Mrs. Bok
symphony here June 12, with young Golschmann, the best living crackerjack
conductor living. This concert is costing me the unbelievable sum of
45,000 francs, full publicity included. Program -"Symphony en Fa" and
Ballet Mecanique with 10 rehearsals and full battery. I accurately
calculate to knock the Paris public cold, and they are already showing
GREAT interest. I may get 10,000 francs back on the tickets sold...
if we sell out, we will get more.

4. Walter Damroch, director of the New York Symphony orchestra, has
taken "Symphony en Fa" on the spot, and announced it in two papers
...mebbe you've seen the New York Herald. I've signed a contract with
him for November.

5. Baldwin's are, in plain black and white, offering to underwrite me

2.

for 10,000 dollars with receipts of concerts extra, providing I get
a piano concerto done and accepted by at least three orchestra directors
in America before summer. I've worked like hell and just now sent off
one movement to keep them quiet. My God, I've never been so busy. I
need at least two private secretaries, and someone to help me to write
just a little of my music on the side.

6. My string quartet was played and given a cold reception. Neither applause nor hissing of an audience that had booed with glee another work upon the same program....Virgil Thomson's ridiculous "Church Sonata," in which he lets loose a squealing clarinet in a tango.... until the people balked....a stupid and vulgar demoded "modernistic" joke. When I asked several persons what they thought of my string quartet...the reply invariably was "I didn't understand it".

Which meant...."I could not make head or tail of it: therefore it must
be bad and consigned to hell."

From this reception by an almost ALL American audience (incidentally Copland who weakly imitated my II/Von Sonata got quite a good hand) I conclude I am getting very chick and right Parisian....because whistling is now demoded.

7. The plates of the 1st Sonata are all engraved and I have the blue proofs in this very room, but have been unable to correct 'em hence dehAy. Slivinski says it will cost me 3000francs to have the plates alone, engraved, and the ppinting comes extra after than. Can we get it done cheaper in Italy? Anyways, as you are coming here I will see you and we can talk. As I sed before, but it seems preposterous to spend money on printing when one can have the fun of giving new works with them.

8. I'vegot a new violin sonata I want to give a private but important performance of with Olga here in early July. Where is she. If You

3.

write me now, give me her address. Don't forget. You always forget
that when I ask you and you write me back.

I'm doing all this concert on my own hook with nary a bit of help
from Natalie, who, for Christ's sake, is a dead number and a false
alarm anyhow. I tried to cooperate with those people, who merely
SHOWED THE GREATEST INTEREST.

Adrianne and Sylvia give good advice, but in reality it is poor little
Böski who trots around to the managers, and goes over details with
Golschmann. My head is splitting and I'm almost nuts. Böski is a
little brick, and is making up for past hindrances.

We've got a little bank account and we're doing the thing in what style
we can, posters all over the town, etc.

If I dared, because I goddamned near wrecked you last time, I would
say, for Christ's sake come up here Ezra.

You see everybody'll subscribe, but that aint it. Its doing the right
thing at the right time, and not the wrong.. enthusiasm, friends,
and all that that counts. I aint got no judgement and Böski less, but
Golschmann seems to know his business, and he is helping us.

Anyhow this is enough for a start for correspondence. When youse
coming?. Mrs. Bok ordered this concert. Almost all the rest of
money eaten up by copying enormous parts for both works, and dress
suit for me for concert, etc. / sic - I'll be broke after concerts if no receipt to
yrs tre,
Geomer
not including Mrs. Bok's money

I'll tell you two secrets if you can keep em. On second thought you probably can. The first aint no secret. I liked Olgas private performance of the fiddle snates at 2 rue chamfort better than most anything in the world, but as I seemed to be, I was not really pleased at Mrs. Gross. This heavy pall combined with the memory of one or two other more than noticeable slips of memory hung over me recently. This makes me betray my second secret. I am on a journey for my health because I am going to America in the third week in Feb: This is to give a big Antheil Festival in Carnegie Hall...Balls Mecanique with all sixteen pricks...and the Whitemen thing. At the same time I am to arrange things for this autumn.

Now this is going to be an awful swell party, and it is mainly to get everybody dopepy for my tour this autumn. Now I ask you with that pax pall hanging over me how am I going to talk

2

Olga to the concert managing gang with my yousual goung and boyish conviction. How different it all would be with the memory of a bright and happy Budapest concert behind us.

That's all I. It ain't complicated.

And that's the reason I aint got no extra expense money. The gentlemen running this party has ordered that my wife comes along and that we both don't look as though we were total beggars. So I shot some of the coin on our clothes this autumn, and an extra 500 dollar bond so that Boeki, who in spite of her marriage is no American and has to be bonded so that she doesn't stay more than two months in America on her visitors visa. Besides this Golshmann is doing my new piano concerto and a new orchestral suite upon March 12th, which means another 1200 dollars shot, as per last time. There is another orchestral concert in June so you can figure it out yourself.

But rather than to let her let me up now I will pay a part of her expenses, if she hasn't understood it otherwise. But I tell you frankly I aint got the money. Let's have no secrets and false pride between us.

The change of weather is doing me good: I aint had the usual three December colds...yet!

Olga has got to get here three weeks before the concert.

Bosk

3

Boski and me go first class to America and back, total expenses are paid, and I get ever cent of the receipts. If the house is full I get 7000 dollars. If nobody comes I and Boski go back to Paris only poover in loss of time, and a lot of expensive clothes we dont otherwise need. But if I do get the money I will be able to get a hell of a lot of concerts done between May 1st, when I arrive back, and the end of June, and at the same time a lot of stuff published for the big gazabo in Murika this autumn.

All this time the doctor has sed that I am likly to suffer from weak lungs IF I dont watch out....so you can see I am trying to do the best I can, and not make any mistakes by foolish saving like staying in Paris:

If I aint a total Goddamn fool, as we both frequently believe me to be, I ough to have lots of money next winter, my stuff published, a big publie in Paris and America, and a reasonable publie several other of these shitty little countries iike this that are so blown up they cant see straight.

Unkel, unkel lieber unkel, you gotta believe Im doing my level best, and as the great poet Dante said "angels can do no better"

Excuse me for treating you like our concert agent. After all it only a game - unfortunately a game which you loose coming or going. Why don't you take us - me any how, for I'm a贅 underpendable piece of cheese. However...

1927 after April

Dear Ezzer,

I was getting very anxious wondering wots up. Can
understand the no typewriter business, but your pencil letters, or
ink epistles are MORE valuable than the type, etc. You must remember
that some day I'll probably die a very poor man, which I am now. Etc.
And should look to the future.

Yus! but how in hell am I to get in touch with Shitwell Familia. I
believe they like me, and support me to quite some degree, but I
never had an inch of correspondence with them, and only met the brothers
after the London concert. Wd. appreciate advice.

I did the New York business as well as wuz possible under the
circumstances of the shit manager I had. The idea wuz this; Donald
Friede, young Jew of 25, wanting to spring into prominence, bought
half of Boni and Liveright from Horace Liveright, and thereby a vice-
presidency. However, Horace outweighed and submerged him in all
matters concerning the firm, so Friede thought he would have to do
something to make himself known in New York, and to assert his
personality. Gallantiere persuaded him to do this stunt of mine....
all the details of which you know. It was a publicity stunt, pure
and simple...for the SOLE good of Mr. Donald Friede. He felt, however,
that he had "wronged" me, and pressure was also brought to bear upon him,
so that he promised "upon his own accord" that he would secure 5000 dollars
for me, and 125 dollars a month for two years. He made and remade this
promise (after all, I gave him 50,000 dollars worth of publicity!!)
but he hasn't come through so far, and I am trying to bring pressure
to bear, so that he will hurry up.

I am broke, outside of Mrs. Bok's regular 75 dollars a month. This
is enough to live on, but it means inactivity as far as autumn concerts
are concerned. And I doubt very much if she will come across again
until I do something over in Europe that again (by the German, English,
and French magazine articles) convinces her that I am a sure bet. I
guess, by the tone of a letter I received recently from her, that she
is pretty badly frightened about the New York concert, and although she
has had no serious break with me, it is imperative that this endless
source of future activity be patched up, and immediately. I wish that
you would give me some of your very high class advice.

If I could get Friede's money, I could knock her eye out.

2

What the hell did you think of the New York concert? Your letter was silent, deadly silent on the subject. Bill Murray, manager of the Baldwin Piano company is really on the peak of enthusiasm, and has promised me that if Friede did not come across, that he would get the company to finance me for next season in Europe...arranging for my triumphal reentry to New York the season following. However, before one gets in touch with Bill, who is always traveling all over, it is the year after next. He is in Italy at present.

An idea! He is a great admirer of yours, and would like to meet you. If you have no objection, why not, as he is at present in Italy somewhere (his wife is an Italian, and he's Casellas American manager, having financed Casella in the first year in America, in 1921) You could tell him what a great guy I am, etc. and incidentally get Olga in soft. As it is, I have little pull, until I make less of a scandalous success than I have.

I guess that's about all. I'm busy as hell working, and dead broke, having spent all of this months allowance. Böski is in Berlin, where her sister is terribly and dangerously ill, and everything looks for the moment, kinda rotten.

Yrs.

[1927

between May- July]

Dear Ezzer,

Belonging to Literaturre as you do, you have fantastic ideas as to just how much can be done with seemingly tremendous sums in music. You must remember that in a new country an impression must be made, not only with music, but with other things as well. One has to go out every evening, hundreds of people must be met, spoken to, drank tea from, etc.

It AINT LIKE SELLING BOOKS AT YOUR LEISURE. At a very short date thousands of people must be assembled, all together, at the same time.

One can't go around in the frayed dinner coat that I have been giving my concerts in all these past years. Neither can I give a concert in it, in Carnegie Hall. Neither can Böski accompany me, with the clothes she had. I didn't want to make a brilliant impression, but a good impression, as I had hoped to earn money in the darned country some day. So much for clothes, which are the smallest item of the program.

One doesn't give two orchestra concerts in Paris, and a concert in the largest hall in Budapest, all at total losses...the losses of the Paris orchestral concerts being tremendous, and both exceeding 1000 dollars through no fault of mine. Neither does one travel back and forth in Italy to give a concert with Olga for nothing either. In fact that item of my expenses could have made a nice little concert of larger dimensions in Paris alone.

As for wine, and women, Böski can assure you that I was the model faithful husband from the day I left Paris last autumn until the day I returned from America this May...and longer. Besides, you can take my word, which is safer.

Besides this, Friede did not pay all of my expenses in America, nor did he attempt to.

Slivinsky promised to have the whole sonata PRINTED for what he only produced the plates for....etc. So I am going to give the plates to the Universal Edition. When they chose to publish it, they can do so, and you can refrain from communicating until then.

I am getting Goddamn sick and tired of the flabbergasted notions that people have as to the infinite stretching possibilities of 5000 dollars. The only crime that I really committed, outside the province of music, or musical politics, i.e. clothes....was that I used some of the money to sustain me in my enforced Doctor's orders banishment from Paris.

Anyhow, whatever use that there was to be gotten out of it, I got it.

in cideit alky not great items

Dear Ezzer,

Here is the terribly late manifest, but I am so gaddom
upset lately, and have been working under such high pressure that
I couldn't help it.

Overwork, day and night, and the apparent unceasing attacks that have
been made upon me since the New York concert, insult, and added to
which a very real poverty ( for I had a few small debts accumulating)
are all enough to drive me out of the peaceful frame of mine I had
when I returned from Africa.

If you feel that the manifest is no good, I wish that you would return
it, and I'll give you a red hot article on America, if you wish it.
But I felt that I've done my best with thing in explaining everything
that I have done to date, and the direction I am going.

In reality, the main thing for concern is that I am writing very good
music, as Olga, who has heard my new music can tell you, and she is
very very enthused about my new line. If you can print this, I wd.
appreciate it, as it comes from me heart.

At present two things worry me. Ezra, you know that I have a fiery
and uncertain temper, and I wish that you would as a friend and uncle
write me a few words what you think about the situation to date. Please
tell me the worse, if you think it....for I have been getting pure
shit from some of my best friends, and in quarters where I lease expected
it.

No. 1, upon which I expect you to specifically answer is this: Friede
upon cancellation of my second concert, realized that it was unnecessary
and that he was doing my future (immediate future for the next year or
two) a great harm. So he, of his own accord promised me of his own
money a subsidy to continue my concerts in Paris. He continued to promise
this in Europe, only Sylvia coerced him to do it, and Joyce turned down
an offer from Friede for a book upon the grounds that he had not made
things right with me, thus showing you how she did it. This has continued
right up to this month, Friede promising that he would get the money for
me, only just now he is broke, and added to which was a new offer for
Joyces book. They didn't answer him. So just now he has written me
a dirty shitty Jew letter accusing me of blackmail....simply because
he has gotten all up and excited because Joyce or Sylvia haven't even
answered him....and because I DARED to write to him and complain that
the nonfulfilment of his promise was plunging me into debt, for if I had
known that he had had no more intention of really giving me this money
I should have gotten rid of my pianola, and lived in one or two rooms
instead of three, and other things, and saved ourselves from borrowing
when the money seemed so sure. I swear to you that I purposely, and
directly said that any effort I would ever make to make him live up
to his promises would be to let the world know of my property AND THAT
WAS ALL....and that my complete passivity beyond this could be positively

2

counted upon.

This last month I got tired of his promises, and letters to Sylvia
...the dirty little cheat only did it because he hoped for the glory
from his firm of landing Joyce... so he kept stringing me... at
a very great expense to myself. Just like he tried to do the concert
in the way he did... and succeeded. But I hated to be done twice.
So I called him to send me at least a little money or call it off, but
to come to a definite understanding. He did not answer my call, but
after a long silence, sent me the enclosed totally unnecessary note.
You can take my word for it, it comes from nothing beyond the Joyce
non-answer to multitudinous telegrams affair.

Friede bought his way into Boni and Liveright, with 100,000 dollars
that Liveright needed because of some woman hold-up case or another.
Liveright is an awfully decent fellow in his way, and hates Friede
like poison. But as Friede's brother is an awfully clever shyster
lawyer down in Wall street, and made the contract for Friede's buying
the vicepresidency, it seems to be a gaddom sight harder to get him
out than any of the other vice presidents who Liveright habitually
sells the vicepresidency to when he needs money, and who sell out for
half or quarter price afterwards.

But young Friede is a courageous, upright, ambitious young man. He
won't be smoked out... he would not, nor could not be lawed out. Still
the office hates him, and he has not a friend there beyond some other
young jew, whose name now escapes me. If the office ever knew... and
how can it know, except through me, or Sylvia, or Joyce, or even you...
if the office of Boni and Liveright ever knew that a man like Joyce
purposely withheld any answer to the bold and dashing young Friede
because he had not yet satisfactorily answered me... that the firm
had such an aid and accomplice... then he might be smoked out.

At this point you ask why I am vindicative. Because Friede is passing
word around everywhere that I am a young son of a bitch whose speciality
is to do everybody out of big sums of money. I have heard this story
twice lately, and it might do damage to my money-getting powers later.
I am convinced that Mr. Friede at this point is dangerous, and should
be squelched. Besides he is no good any more to anyone, as his mother
has accidentally found out that he has lost a great deal of money on
the stock exchange and has closed down on all of his further plans to
bring notables to America... she controls the moneybags, so what she says
goes. She told me this herself, so I know.

If Liveright knows about the Joyce affair, it might smoke up Friede
to do two things... to give me a little moeny, which I would be very
thankful for just now... and to above all shut up. And ultimately it
will bring nearer the hoped for day when the little sissy mommer's
boy will rather not prefer to remain with Liveright... which Liveright
will be thankful for.

3

After the letter I have received from him, and enclose, I almost feel like sueing him...and let the lawyer have the money, as Lowenfels, butter and egg man seems willing to do for me. But this seems wrong...but you can see I'm upset. I need your cool far-off soothing and calming advice. Tell me to cool off and why, but be logical so I can kid myself to cool off right. Can you tell me any good reason why he should not be squelched?

Please return the letter from Friede, as well as the letter from Mrs. Bok, by return mail, as I need 'em immediately.

No. 2. Here is Mrs. Bok's letter. She promises to again take me up when she is convinced that I have changed from the bad, evil Ballet Mecanique which she has heard... remember that...its deadly evidence.

Now I see no Goddamned use of waiting...for I HAVE written a whole bunch of music to please her...but she won't listen to it, she's so certain I'm under especially your influence (I've always quoted you the most, so it's you she really means in this letter).

Do you see any harm in sending her some of the simplest examples of my LATE post-mozartian music couched in simple piano keys for her own fingers (she plays the piano a bit herself, and there is always a magnificent instrument open in her favorite room where she plays a good deal)...together with a recent letter from you...scolding me good and proper (don't use cuss words) for writing Mozartian music...reactionaire! instead of the Beautiful Ballet Mecanique music. If I send this, I might immediately have a check for a great deal of money, for I know my Mrs. Bok very well. You see that you, "Joyce crowd" and the Ballet Mecanique worry her.

If you send this letter, send it in envelop so that I can send all.

AFTER I get money, I shall take pains, I PROMISE to have her see the right side of you, and your somewhat larger views upon music that the Ballet Mecanique, but just at present she has all the argument upon her side. She doesn't understand you, that's all, and I shall take pains ... the very greatest I am capable of that she shall...afterwards. She is a powerful allie, and we need these kind.

Remember...at present you are in a dreadful perplexity about me...but later, after I get the money, you shall write me a letter, saying that you are convinced that the WAY I HAVE TAKEN TOWARDS my new music was correct, and you are convinced. This will make her feel good and make her feel that she has done right. This does not mean that We cannot do exactly as we wish. Likewise don't worry about the Criterion article, she's forgotten it, or has never read it...besides you could have been thinking it over and over, and thinking more and more that this new classic music of mine is all wrong. Try to get me from the wayward path if you care. But if you decline, in all cases send me your opinion of the situation. I sent her the letter you advised, and also the newspaper clipping made for her in Herald the other morning, but no favorable answer yet.

Yrs.

George Antheil

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ACTUALITY OF MY PRESENT MUSIC

The drawings of Miro have reassured me. I turn back to the pages of my "Airplane" Sonata and the "Death of the Machines" with a sense of artistry. Having made these sonatas out of sounds I heard in dreams in 1922, I wondered if at that time I were not too original ( believe me, there is such a thing.) I saw no activity about me of these quintessences that were more like myself than I knew. At least I was forced to consider that this music was for the moment too breathless and pale to stand against that ruddy music that my friends were making. In my waking hours I was pursued by sounds which were part of the innumerable sounds and musics heard in dreams. These might have been forecasts of futures beyond my life; ideal geographies over a civilized and populated Africa or Canada, and things more real to myself than you who I may someday see without your knowing it. Before me stood the actuality of the concert stage, leaden and perverted apparition! This music did not go; would not go. You must understand that at the time I was a pianist, a profession belonging to the category of vaudeville gymnasts who must know an immediate touch with their audiences. When I abandoned this, I brought with me its most valuable possession; the muscles of my brain had established a stage connection. I knew this music would not operate in the connection at this time, 1922, even before I played it.

This was no fault of mine, and at the time I suspected it; this I shall later demonstrate; remember I called my second sonata "Death of the Machines". What a prophecy! There are of course, no prophecies; the mind knows all that will occur to it and this is sometimes expressed in dreams or in sections of days when one is more than awake. In this dimension my mind became obsessed with "going"...to move, and in a new, more exciting dimension. The hardness of life, directly after the war in Germany, made me see the world as one of hard steel to live in; I spoke constantly of "mechanisms" (for "architecture" is an extra-musical word) and time became the principle subject of my meditations. Time! Time must be filled..."it is the space of our musical canvas"..."it must be made to go"...otherwise music has no real movement, only a succession of tonalities, producing the old tonal forms. "Without time there is no consideration of new form". Go! Go! It once squared itself meekly off in the time-honored machinery of the past. I spurned these devices, and never again did I consider them except as pale ghosts or birds of a beautiful plumage on the other side of a glass that reflected my own creations. The poetry of Time and the mechanism for moving it filled all of my waking hours; and it was this that I meant when I called a ballet I wrote mechanical..."mecanique". Alas, I am indeed misborn, doomed forever to make no gesture or utter no word that would not be completely and impotently interpreted without poetry. To make up for this unending curse, I was made aware of a gigantic compression and inflation in this world of science...this was that time when functioning in music is out of all resemblance to ordinary time.

2

The beauty that this vision encompassed prompted me to vision the future in a new element of time. I saw vast cinemas projecting a new dimension upon the skies upon lightly cloudy nights, or upon the whole heavens upon clear summer evenings. The whole world could be a theatre, from which the new artist assisted by the new element of time contained in the ever moving film, could draw inspiration and paint the heavens. I sent this idea in detail to every cinema company in America in 1921. I only received an answer from one. They did not understand that I did not want to show moving pictures upon the heavens, but new constructions of time!...a new dimension of our earth-locked people. I even suggested that day be turned into our night, and that we work and live during the night in this new dimension, which eventually the greatest artists of future ages would find power and perfection to unlock us. I visioned music-machines large enough to vibrate whole cities.

Do not mistake me. I never saw the world of the future as an age of machines. I saw the machines subdued, concealed; life perfectly organized. Civilization has always meant that which man manufactured with his own hands...he can do nothing with day which is dominated by another heavenly body, the sun...but he can manufacture night into a dimension that will liberate us, believe me. Some day it must be so, for we must ever have more quiet, more perfection for life.

The extactic poetry of space! The satisfying hardness of time! Today, at least, one had to make things hard enough out of time with sound so that one could grip them with the hand. I became more and more occupied with the problems of new musical mechanism. (Naturally my constant use of the last word is one of a musician in relation to the inner working and moving of music alone.) It became necessary to throw a new projection into time-space. Can you imagine this wonderful "madness"; the beating of my heart as I trapped, little by little, TIME.

The "Ballet Mecanique": here I stopped. Here was the dead line, the brink of the precipice. Here, at the end of this composition where in long stretches no single sound occurs beyond the sound of the propeller, and time itself acts as music; here was the ultimate fulfilment of my poetry; here I had time moving without touching it.

This is what I wanted to do. I therefore lost all interest in it. Telegraphic communication was established with Mars.

## II

When the silly sham of business has passed us by, and the artists and writers who interpret it...in other words, when the "tired business man's" jazz has left us forever to quiet and a new contemplation of the future, we will awake to find our star brightly ascending. Jazz is already dead, but there are not many who already realize this. Therefore I have been preparing a bridge for the future. I am writing this in Africa, it is summer. Regard for a moment this distant range of mountains. How delicate are these brutal lines; I see them from so far off.

3

Our dream is far away, and to reach it we must castoff everything, especially present-day music, the heaviest of our burdens. How can we bear these thousands of "Societies for Modern Music" which should read "Societies for Present-day General Music" or even better "As Usual General Mediocre Contempory Music".

A friend of mine once told me "It is a dangerous thing that all of your friends are not musicians. I said..."it would be a dangerous thing if they were; musicians do not think...this is the dangerous thing. They write music without knowing it, following only a kind of guide post."

Halt! here is the way: for all others beyond the musician himself, music should be like something. In this way we carry the soul of music with us without carrying its burden. It stays by our side because it is exactly like us. We have a hole cut out of cardboard in the shape of a heart mirrored in a living heart exactly like it. This is side beside it. It is like our two shadows, a black and a white one.

There is today a classic music which resembles the photograph of a photograph; this music, we are told, is a continuation of the heavens of Bach. However, in reality, it is but a color of these heavens of Bach, of which the man who began them dreamt. He dreamt of continuing an abstract music, but the passage of time has so altered the tactical situation that no matter how new and beautiful the recreated Creation is, we achieve but the color of it....of Bach.

It is like peering at a bad photograph in a dim light....."is this a horse?.......or.......my mother..."

It is not a question of good or bad, which is no question in art. The thing stands...it is made anew, pointed and fastened differently. All good music should resemble something. Let us do away with the horrid apparition of abstraction; this wicked lie will not let music dream. There is in this direction but Time and the new ways of moving it, the holes in it, and the nuclei of the phenomena about which the world revolves. This provides us with enough dynamite, let us assassinate the word "abstraction" which does not belong to our art. **Is not then music itself "pure"?**

Music itself is almost incapable of anecdote; it cannot speak the words "Brother James has a green cat," but it can remind us of Egypt or be like a beautiful bird that has been shot by a stray bullet and falls obliquely to the earth.

When I wrote my "Ballet Mecanique", near the end of the second part, some madness within myself and a superior knowledge of all other fools compelled me to start a series of extentions to a gigantism of heretofore unheardof length; I portrayed in my theatre, a foot so large that the rest of the body must be imagined as extending beyond and out of the picture. But I could not resist the temptation of tearing the roof off my theatre:—"HERE! I swear unto you, the public, it is true, and there is no deception! I would not tamper with the truth. Here you have it complete". I wanted to surprise them with shame for their habitual taking of all things for granted, of which, for the most part they have not the slightest conception.

4.

Understand me. I knew that every dolt believes himself to be a superb critic of musical form; the sole knowledge contained in this unexplainable credo lies in the easy and quick comprehension of the well-known musical formula, the trio form, ABA. This is his sole anchor, which, if he knew someone was trying to drag, would explode his understanding.
Consequently this formula: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA makes him uneasy: it throws him into the air.

When new music resembles only a music that has been, we must remember that this has no merit, or demerit in itself; i.e. I dare not cloth myself in the respect people accord Beethoven because I myself have no respect for him (How, indeed, could I respect this man whom I love so much!) There are but few men who are poets enough to habitually associate with the Great Masters, and not, in the end, become one of them.

Adieu, creation of immortal works; adieu, oh clever bourgeoise trap whereby we can today use the "Comedie Francaise and the cathedral as the topmost triumphs in our arts. For it is only by the quintessence of myself that I may hope for immortality—not by writing the titles of my works in block letters a yard high to be read ten years hence. But do not think that I do not understand the advantage of taking by stealth a bourgeoise institution and of finding a ready-made audience, or of the full daring of this superb trick which provides me with full material for many reactions.

Silence, all other false music! here at least was a pathway over crude horns that paved the way to the future. We must remember that the music of the bourgeoise which is the symphony concert has taken the place of the folk at our cradles. No longer the Negro mammy croons over me, from childhood I am taken to orchestral concerts. Here is not a vaudeville imitation of a locomotive; or a cinema music— here is not a dull and pretentious modernism; here is formidable tree that has grown into my present life, true and straight. I am a peasant of cities— this is from where I come.

### III

This new classic music before my "Symphonie en Fa" was always written for small orchestras, which automatically gave it a new color; or, if not, then a large orchestra handled not too far from the orchestral technic of the musical-impressionists. Worse...to this was added the literal orchestral technic of the ancient Italian masters. This slushy new music still continues. I only stepped in, in 1925, when I saw it to be out of their hands, and when I had, once for all, seen through the silly schoolgirlish "tired business man's" jazz.

For all of these composers were powerless before the gigantic symphony orchestra; they avoided it like the plague and gave many reasons why the sharp incisiveness of the smaller orchestra better suited their purposes. Still, even the small orchestras they used remained semi-impressionistic. Only one, the Great one, emerged, as always, the genie of our age. Still even he avoided the large orchestra. Pieces of length, great heroic forms, the heroic inflection, the crude mass of strings handled from the bow sharply and without shame...the Tragic and the Static mask still frightened him, although he was later to do these very things.

5.

In June, 1926, my "Symphonie en Fa" embodying for the first time this
first real hardness of static and classic music...this wished-for
quietness from the fraud age of jazz to prepare the silence for the
age-to-come of machines was played at the Theatre des Champs Elysees
and lasted over an hour.

It was not until just a year later at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre that I first began to see my life as a mysterious and secret triumph. Unrelieved by choruses, or vocaliese that makes a long work possible, I had held the attention for an hour by these neo-heroic blocks a year before, which had again and for the first time employed a gigantic, heroic, tragic form with a large, dry, sharp orchestra. Everything had been remade, the form and the orchestra, gaunt and bare. But the heart and essence were kept intact, even though exposed through a glass partition. I stole only from Beethoven, but I took only the bad parts. My orchestra wheezed and coughed, and almost broke down at exactly the right moments only to convince his audience out of the corner of his eye and has the catch in his throat at an exactly timed second. The orchestra is only there to color, to give breath and body to the idea. For this purpose, a large orchestra is naturally more suitable, but obviously, it has to be reinvented, reorganized to give point edge, hardness, and softness again anew, the eternal rebirth of everything. The orchestra no longer exists for itself. It is beautiful without needing to be beautiful in itself. This is the real point.

IV

I have so far enumerated the three most important corners of my contention which are:-

1. Time is the ultimate moving quality of music; there is no abstraction in music beyond the moving of time without touching it.

2. All good music should be like something. Otherwise there is no deception or surprise into music itself. For instance, like a dream or a bird.

3. The orchestra no longer exists for itself-- it is beautiful without needing to be beautiful in itself. This is true orchestral beauty.

There now remains this matter of taste. There is, for example, in Paris, the city of my adaption, the most exact taste. We have the example of several young composers following an exact graph of taste; their music has no mistakes. They will tell you that in this music which is "pure" music (what shall we think of that!) that there is absolutely no fraud.

Good taste, with feet too solid upon the ground is always bad taste.

6.

How often have these young composers with spectacles glued to their
noses followed the footsteps leading into the future only to find
that the track has doubled back and passed through them invisibly. We
are always safe from the eruption of [ILLUSTRATIVE] Vesuvius.

V

And what will the music of the future be? ... it will be machinery...
never fear that. But silent machinery, dreams, spaces which the
heart cannot fill.

In closing, I never can express how much I detest "modern music"...this
cruel sham which will not let us think or dream.

George Antheil
Tunis, Marsa, Africa.

August, 1927.

Dear Ezra,

Thanks very much for your very long letter which was a very much needed moral support at the moment. I think that I've gotten everything very straight and clear in my mind now...you know that everybody's such a Goddamned fool around me, and people have been getting my goat the last three months or so coming around an offering sympathy. I always suspected that it was I that wuz full of shit in listing to them, but now I have got the number of the whole damned bunch, and what they say will go in one ear and out the other. Anyhow, I've done a lot of work while they wuz talking to me, which shows that deeply nothing is affected, really. But I do git these little impulsive quivers now and then.

I don't think that the Herald article can do any too much harm, as everybody in Paris knows that my late music like the Symphony is classical enough. But it looks like I wuz taking my stand here in Paris, when I send it back to America. However, perhaps it has, and I will lay off of the stuff in the future.

There is only one thing: I've written a lot of the Symphonie en Fa kind of music and I see no reason why it should not work for me in America.

Lastly I do not see why I should not finally and lastly declare why I wrote that music TO YOU. I didn't do it because of Mrs. Bok, but because of Strawinsky.

Here is the whole story: You know thatin 1924 I was very much hurt at the accusation of Strawinskyism that came down upon me, even from you, though yours, fortunately was not public. Personally I see no harm in a young composer being influenced in the beginning ...no one makes the world over for oneself, but it upset me unduly.

Not only this, but I was determined to have Paris for a public, and intelligent Paris acclaimed Strawinsky's last works as the highest point of its own genius. I apparently was only in the throes of one of his abandoned schools.

A composer must have at leastone city, today, where he can steadily rely upon a public. Books can be sent all over the world, but audiences must be collected all at one time and one place.

Then and there I determined that some day, not far in the future Strawinsky should COPY ME.

Beautiful Hairbreath Harry has succeeded...twice.

The "Gala de Musique Mecanique" was a pure imitation of my concert a year before.

2

But even more glaring than that his "Oedipus Rex" produced this year is the most glaring case of similarity with my "symphonie en fa" that I have ever seen.

Here are the points of comparison.

1. Two of the main themes, quite new in style for Strawinsky, are similar, note for note with themes in the "Symphonie en Fa".

2. Three other themes bear striking resemblance.

3. It is heroic and tragic in style. I was the first to rediscover these elements in "Symphonie en Fa".

4. It is just as long as the symphonie. All of Strawinsky's last pieces have been short.

5. Strawinsky has employed nothing but tiny orchestras for the last ten years. His new orchestra for Oedipus is exactly the same size as the "symphonie en fa".

6. He uses the strings and the woods and brass in the same new manner, hard and brittle, that I invented.

7. The points of similarity in orchestral tricks is legion, because I learnt orchestration originally from Strawinsky and carried his developements far beyond himself, and when he eventually catches up, I get the credit first.

Diageleff quarelled with Strawinsky because he did not like Oedipus. I am told that one of the reasons was that he said it was in the same boring, stupid line as the music of Antheil.

Anyway you can see that I am getting talked about a lot.

If you think I did this to please Mrs. Bok, solely, or to even please Paris, you are mistaken. I believe that an artist should be able to do anything in his art well, and not only be able to leave an imprint upon what he does, but upon the other creative spirits in his age. I particularly admire Picasso, whose reputation certainly has not gone down because he changed every once in a while.

In reality Picasso has not changed, he recently came back to a kind of cubism...but what a cubism!! It is a kind of circling about oneself...a spiral upwerds, or downwards, as you wish. But I hate death of any kind, I like to keep moving. Don't worry, you will soon see a work "The Plan of Cities" which will far outstip the Ballet Mecanique in plan, esthetiques, and powere. If there is to be a music of the future, this will be it.

3

But inbetween should be these sketches of complete "artistry."
An opera will be in Berlin of involved beautifully intricate
operatic line, far flung, and in Philadelphia shall staidly
sit at certain concerts. These are all parts of myself.

Today I am leading actually the most important musical
intelligences of the time. If I wanted small victories
I should go to Russia to astound the bears, but why?
I have lived to just turn into my next quarter of a century,
but I have already witnessed a whole people speaking one of
the greatest tongues in the world turn to my ideas, which I
alone first propounded to them...the jazz and mechanics of
central Europe. My name, perhaps, is lost in the general
scramble today, and because I keep hidden in Paris, but the
people who are important know, and I should not be surprised
ten years hence to see myself hailed as the farther of
German music, with my name...Anton.

Paris is probably coo-coo, but it is the hardest fort to
reduce, so my big guns have been upon it for some time.
Civilization and art in the near future will have nothing
to do with Paris. When is the big war coming? I seem to
feel it. It will break out in Italy, of course, and then
England who is financing Italy...then United States against
the world. This is the merest superstition and intuition...
don't take it seriously. But know that nobody knows the sweet
and weak tastes of Paris any better than myself.

Nevertheless I don't see why you do not see what I did last
year in the Symphony and piano concerto, suite, etc. I had
to gather in the reins and put the others definitely out of
the running.

YOUR ADVICE TO GET THINGS PRINTED IS VERY IMPORTANT AND I AM GOING
TO ACT UPON IT RIGHT AWAY.

But you liked the little animal sketches of your sculptor
sketch so why should you object to delicacy when given out by
a composer. I admit, it does seem more lewd in music. This
is the wrong attitude to take towards delicacy, it seems to me.
Without delicacy there can be no brutality, but it is a mistake
to try to put both extremes of the world in the same picture.

4.

About the manifesto: If you want, cut out the Scriabinesque parts, and use it. I didn't mean to talk about my beautiful sad soul, but if I did, I probably meant something else, you can bet. The thing is that probably the writing is not clear enough, and too dada or surealist....but the idea of the dream....which seems to me the nearest the cold clear light of the future...is what I wanted to get....and all of the Scriabinesque (apparently) touches seem to me to have so long ago become ridiculous that they were already hard and usable. However, I am not a literoary genius and prone to mistakes of the most glaring order should I get literary, which I probably did....although I saw at the moment no other way of presenting the return to the understanding of the Airplane Sonata and the Death of Machines.

There's no use waiting for a concert, cause there aint none in sight. If you can't cut it up and use pregnant bits, send it back, and it will go into my portfolio which I hope someday when I am 89 to rewrite and make a book of...when I aint got no more balls.

One must preserve the juice of the balls of one's youth in various places so that one will have ideas when one grows older.

The world is completely full of shit. Your letter came in good time. Am interested to hear more about new magazine. Had dinner with Sam Putnam the other night. If Covici get behind it, it ought to be distributed all over the States.... but CAN it?

Thanks again for your long letter which calmed me considerably. Thanks for the book which I should have acknowledged right away, but which I appreciate very much. Probably best not to do anything about Bok letter just yet, nor Friede. Oh, yes....do you know of a concert...any where.

Yrs