"Riots came rather to be the order of the day at my concerts because I was one of the few pianists of that period always to end a concert with a modern group [of pieces], preferably of the most 'ultra' order. ... My piano was wheeled out on the front of the stage, before the huge Léger cubist curtain, and I commenced playing. Rioting broke out almost immediately. I remember Man Ray punching somebody in the nose in the front row. Marcel Duchamp was arguing loudly with somebody else in the second row. In a box near by Erik Satie was shouting, 'What precision! What precision!' and applauding. The spotlight was turned on the audience by some wag upstairs. It struck James Joyce full in the face, hurting his sensitive eyes. A big burly poet got up in one of the boxes and yelled, 'You are all pigs!' In the gallery the police came in and arrested the surrealists who, liking the music, were punching everybody who objected." —From George Antheil's autobiography, Bad Boy of Music (1945). [German edition published by Europäische Verlagsanstalt]

Click to hear samples of Antheil's music