I find this post quite fascinating.  It touches on a topic which I tried to
raise a while back, specifically, the relation between Pound's poetry and
certain styles of 20th century classical music

Margaret wrote:
<<
I don't know if this post will hold up against the humor, but I'll put
it down for the record. . .
Pound's article for New Masses regarding factory music was motivated by
an interest in larger conceptual forms for rhythm than the "small bits"
of rhythmic unity that could be found in concert music.>>

Do you know if Pound wrote on or made many comments about other composers,
aside from Antheil.  I believe he also saw a performance of Antheil's opera,
"Transatlantique", and it was at this performance where he briefly met
Froebenius.

<<The article
based its interest on the accomplishment of Antheil's Ballet mecanique
which according to Antheil and Pound was the first Western piece of
music to achieve a large rhythmic form in space/time.>>

What was the precise date of the performance of this work, and could it
honestly be said the Antheil wrote "the first piece to achieve a large
rhythmic form in space/time."?  Had not Stravinsky and Prokofiev already
acheived this in their early works, which were well known in France.

<<Pound was looking
for other "venues" so to speak. The article suggests the musically
oriented person from among the factory employees could "compose" the
sounds for their fellow-workers. >>

Prokofiev had written by this time, I believe, the ballet "Pas d'Acier,"
which contained a final movement called "The Factory," a work of such force
and mechanical brutality that he was accused simultaneously of being a
"bolshevik" in the West, and a "bourgeois formalist" innovator in the Soviet
Union.   Artur Honneger wrote "Pacific 231" during the 30's, I believe, in a
simlilar style, as a depiction of the force of a locomotive, gathering and
picking up speed, the entire piece being a crescendo and accelerando, until
the entire work collapses under the stress of excessive velocity.  Erik
Satie had written the ballet "Parade" which used typewriters, sirens, and
other modern mechanical devices.  The great French innovators known as "Les
Six" (whose most notable member was perhaps, Francois Poulenc) were thriving
during the twenties; they inspired Prokofiev to write his second symphony,
which might be considered the most expanded spacio-temporal rhythmic rupture
in the musical fabric  of that era.

I have not heard Antheil's ballet mechanique, and wonder if you would
recommend it.   Is it similar to Honneger, Satie, Prokofiev, or to
Stravinsky (or is it perhaps like the work of Darius Milhaud?   Milhaud
wrote a very complex work to be performed by machinery, a work which only
very recently---last year---- could be performed on the mechanical
instruments suited to his very demanding specifications)


"Since then of course, new music has
taken on the challenge of larger forms, both rhythmic and arhythmic."

I can hardly believe that Antheil's work, or any of the above mentioned
works (including Prokofiev's second symphony) could have surpassed
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as the  "first Western piece of music to achieve
a large rhythmic form in space/time".  That work premiered in Paris in 1911,
as you probably know, and the performance precipitated riots.  (Stravinky
had to flee from a mens' room window to escape the mob; Maurice Ravel, who
was present, was beaten on the head, when he tried to quiet some of the
rioters.  His attacker cried out to him, "Shut up, not another word, you
Jew," although Ravel was not Jewish, of course.).

May I ask, which of the twentieth century classical composers, in your view,
is most similar to Pound?  Whose music do you think, in tone, rhythm,
colour, mood, scope and aesthetic effect, most closely resembles Pound's
poetry?


Regards,

Wei


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