George Edward Ives

[Catison]

This is an amazing discussion, which I hope to read through soon.  But bravo for a truly enlightening exchange.  There are too few of them on the board, but it is what makes me come back again and again.

Anyone who wants the JSTOR articles, pm me.

[Joe Barron]

Well, thank you, Cat. I  don't claim any special insight here. Everything I say is just a reiteration of what I've read.

Looking back over the posts, though, I fear I've been too hard on George and his son. Certainly, Charles' use of band music and hymn tunes shows a reverence for his father long before his late phase, and his idea of multiple musics takes George's ideas as their starting point. The impression one gains from Gayle's book is not simply that Ives worked his way back to George's influence after a period of trying to model himself on Parker. Even so conservative and early a work as "The Celestial Country" shows a sort of relbellion against Parker in its use of the "quartet-choir" --- a combined amateur choir and professional vocal quartet popular at the turn of the last century.  Apparently, Parker regarded such ensembles as an abomination.

As for Ives's modernism, I've just finished reading Carol's essay on the dating of Ives's manuscripts, and she concludes that The Three-Page sonata, one of Ives's experimental works, probably dates from the first decade of the century. This would make it one of those laboratory works that Gayle mentions but doesn't treat in detail.

I do have to disagree with Ugh on one point, though. While George may be an interesting figure in his own right, he left us no music,  and to me, his true importance lies in his influence on his son. Without Charles, we wouldn't be as interested in him as we are. In other words, I am mre interested in Charles's music than in George's experiments.

[Joe Barron]

I think the influence of Geo and HP comes across in several works, most esp the fugue mvt (Greenlands Icy Mtns) in Sym 4 and the Alcotts in the Concord Sonata, but here and there in many works. HP was that one wheel on the ground and Geo (and Emerson, and Thoreau, and Hawthorne, and Whitman, et al) represented that celestial hitching post.'

Well put.

I'm not familiar with the fugue in four keys, but I'll amend my original statement. He left us little music of his own.

I can't log on to to JSTOR, so I don't know what that untitled review is about.

[Guido]

Ives wrote at least two fugues in four keys as far as I can rmemeber - one of which, on "The Shining Shore" is one of the most sheerly beautiful things he wrote imho. might you be getting this confused (I don't know, but I haven't found any reference to a piece by that title by George. There is a short fugue by George recorded by Berman, but it seems rather conventional to me - I don't think it's in four keys.

' 's post is right on the mark I think. One gets the feeling that every song is deeply personal - as Swafford notes, they were like a diary for him, in which he recorded all his hopes, and fears and the events that shaped his life and ideas, as well as a record of all his experiments. It would be fascinating to read an analysis of all the songs, which I don't think anyone has done properly as yet - probably because there's so many of them.

p.s. I like the way you end every post with a " ' ". Obviously it closes the open quotation mark of your name, but it always makes me think about your post again. What's the idea behind it?

[Joe Barron]

I like how an apostrophe is an aside to no one in particular

It's the crux of the biscuit. 

', which song is it that gives the accompanist time to turn the page? I'll have to look that one up.

[Ugh!]

Well put.

I'm not familiar with the fugue in four keys, but I'll amend my original statement. He left us little music of his own.

As far as I know, his "Fourth Fugue", which is fairly conventional is the only recorded work by GEI. I remember seeing a CD with somebody recreating George Ives' marching band experiments somewhere as well...

IMO the fact that so little music is known only makes him more intriguing, since it is the spirit of experimentation that I am inspired by...