Bad Boy at 53

Composer George Antheil, 53, onetime bad boy of modern music, no longer scores compositions for mechanical pianos and fire sirens, and has created no major musical scandal since his Ballet Mechanique nearly panicked Carnegie Hall in 1927.* Instead, he has been quietly sitting in his Los Angeles home, industriously turning out music that is remarkably easy to listen to. Last week he was on hand for the opening of his third opera, Volpone, in Manhattan's minuscule Cherry Lane Theater.

Patrons could see him. sitting in the front row, a small man who has a passing resemblance to Peter Lorre, listening attentively to the music but with one ear cocked to audience response. For about two hours, the comedy went on, its performers (from the Punch Opera company) obviously enjoying their slightly bawdy roles. The score, with its occasional tang of dissonance and its shifting harmonies, sounded like slightly clouded Prokofiev, contained some lively ensemble passages and as large a share of waltzes as Rosenkavalier. If few listeners were carried away, it may have been because the plot of Ben Jonson's old comedy seemed pretty far removed from 1953 Manhattan, or perhaps because the music dropped its best tunes before they were fairly started.

Composer Antheil shrugged off one or two critical critics ("The great American opera has yet to be written," reported the New York Herald Tribune). He was satisfied that his opera gets across to its audiences. In any case, Antheil does not have to make his living from his Volpones or from his symphonies (six so far, with a seventh in the works). His fiscal foundation: scoring an occasional Hollywood film. Besides writing crackerjack scores for such movies as Specter of the Rose, The Sniper, The Juggler, In a Lonely Place, Antheil admits that he is quietly fostering a reputation as a musical medicine man who can pull a loosely knit film together by music alone. "If I say so myself," he says, "I've saved a couple of sure flops." Since he has no wish to be tagged as a "Hollywood composer," he limits himself to two pictures a year.

In addition to his third opera, seventh symphony and a couple of film scores, Antheil has been busy recently on a violin concerto, piano sonatas and a string quartet. A few years ago he wrote his autobiography, Bad Boy of Music, in which he bade a fervent farewell to jangle, for a while even wrote a column of advice to the lovelorn for the Chicago Sun syndicate. But he has now given literature up, too. "It's silly for a composer to write a book," he says. "I'm just too busy to be sensational any more."

*When an airplane propeller, installed for sound effects, also sent its formidable wash across the astounded audience.

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