George Antheil was not only always ahead of his time; he was also an alert contemporary and ready to take in all artistic trends of the first half of the 20th century. There was hardly a kind of music he wasn't aware of, hardly a madness he didn't take part in, and hardly a scandal he missed, or missed to cause. All his personal entanglements are certainly reflected in his compositions – and we wouldn't expect any less from him; but his continuing reputation as a genuinely unique character is nevertheless mainly owed to his intangible polystylistics and, similar to Satie, his absolutely non-conformist compositional style. Especially his works for piano dating from the years 1919 to 1932 seem like a concentrate of his creative energies and, moreover, of his compositional life: from the slightly impressionist Fireworks and the Profane Waltzes, to the genuinely jazzy Jazz Sonata or the Sonata Sauvage, which describes a possible fierce future with the ease of a sleepwalker. And: Benedikt Koehlen demonstrates his truly playful approach to these unique works for piano.