Here are the first patterns that the Pianolist will "experience" when performing BALLET MECANIQUE by George Antheil, via the sparkling Interpretive Arrangement created in 1991 by L. Douglas Henderson.
There are no "TIME SPACE" numbers stamped on the roll at this point, since — being a "totally 'machine' presentation" — this involved a silent movie projector and a musician at the Player-Piano for accompaniment. As with movie accompaniment 'cue cards' (widely published in the 'Twenties), the Introduction shown here allowed the projectionist and the Pianolist to 'synchronize' and "gather steam" as it were. The titles for the Synchro-Ciné production would be on the screen, ostensibly, as the Pianolist readied for the first block of new material.
"TIME SPACE"was an original idea coined by composer Antheil, in which a repeating figuration could be played again and again, cut to "fit" a particular motion picture scene. The repetitious patterns allowed the music to be adjusted to the visuals on the screen, for whatever projection times they might require.
Today, these musical "blocks" aid the Pianolist is presenting BALLET MECANIQUE without the original motion picture, since each number (as it appears) signals a "cut" to a different visual image. Known scene numbers are stamped on the ARTCRAFT Rolls, though — admittedly — Antheil and the movie makers changed these around frequently, adding ... eliminating .... or changing their presentation order.
This illustration could be called "TITLE MUSIC" in essence --
Note the staccato nature of these "driving" chords, since you won't see anything like this when we show you a sample of the original 1925 French rolls of this monumental work! The graduated striking inherent in ARTCRAFT Interpretive Arrangements is the key to the effervescent and sparkling performance panache to the new arrangement by L. Douglas Henderson. The composer said that the music was "cold, blue, metallic steel" at one point, and in his 1945 autobiography The Bad Boy of Music he wrote: "I said everything I had to say in this strange, cold, dreamlike, ultraviolet medium ... and it closed a period of my work and life, for once I get the work as nearly perfect as I can, then I abandon it."
That he did! George Antheil returned to the sphere of convention motion picture music and works of a romantic, melodic nature ... which alienated James Joyce and others in the Art Deco movement of atonality.
The ARTCRAFT arrangement features these attributes, as you can see visually, from the sample above. However, this is only a curtain-raiser for the fantastic Pianola effects to come. Continue on to the next picture ...