Antheil, George - Le monde selon George Antheil - Ahonen, Joonas

George Antheil called himself a "pianist-futurist." A lover of speed, cars, and airplanes, this American composer settled in Paris during the Années Folles, where he often visited Picasso and Stravinsky's theater and composed works such as Sonate sauvage and Jazz Sonata, which caused a scandal: at a concert in Budapest, he even brandished a Chicago-style pistol to restore silence in the hall... He idolized Beethoven, whose works he played at the beginning of his recitals before moving on to his own music. In 1933, he returned to the United States, where he met John Cage and Morton Feldman. Patkop and the young Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen – whom The Times described as the violinist's "twin"! – pay tribute to the "bad boy of music" after what the reporter described as "one of those concerts you will remember forever."