Charles Ives

[snyprrr]

Just happened to get caught up with Ives in the last few weeks, getting the three big Piano Works (S1, S2, 3 Microtonal Pieces + 3PageS). The 3-Page Sonata is mighty impressive. I haven't gotten the other two yet...

I am trending towards his Band Music...


Ives has such a hominess about him... soul food...

[snyprrr]

Just happened to get caught up with Ives in the last few weeks, getting the three big Piano Works (S1, S2, 3 Microtonal Pieces + 3PageS). The 3-Page Sonata is mighty impressive. I haven't gotten the other two yet...

I am trending towards his Band Music...


Ives has such a hominess about him... soul food...

Band Music

This disc of 'The President's Own' conducted by Foley called 'Charles Ives's America' is just the best thing ever... everrr/ I'm assuming it's the same recital as is on Naxos, so I'm sure you've heard it. Well, I love this stuff!!
\


Also, Piano Sonata No.1 (Lawson), wow, again so impressive, and then I did get Lubimov's 2nd, and that is the crowni ng achievement. he '3 Quarter Tone Pieces' hit me exactly as all other quarter tone music does, not much. Well, you have to plow all the fields to know...

I expected No.2 to be the greatest, but I hadn't anticipated No.1's intriguing structure, and length, and substance.


IVES IS JUST SOOOO TOWERINGLY DOMINATING... I was thinking of Ruggles, and then I heard something on that Band CD, and all of a sudden there was no need for Ruggles anymore... or Copland... or...

His America seems to be the correct one...






HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY

Any recommends?

MTT
Bernstein
Zinman
Ormandy
Dallas SO
Naxos?
one more?

[snyprrr]

I share this sentiment 

But I'm also struck by his Cosmic Modernity which pops in and out, so that when the music is playing a hymn melody, the things he does around makes it sound like a gyroscope on many different levels... and the absolute absorption of the "playing many songs at once" schtick, where he's writing like, Hey, It just came to me, now discarded and back to the tune, the endless "drunk" offbeats that make Revueltas seem like a repentant.

But Ives know how to build a diatonic climax of the most gorgeous, sun like God streaking through the clouds, rolling hills of green on a summer day.... Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!.....(like the opening of Symphony No.4)...




Listened recently to the Centaur version of the 'Universe Symphony', 37mins., starting off in silence, percussion for 15mins., then a slow building of literally cosmic sounding music, to a shuddering climax, and then descending back into space...

As a document, it is certainly very interesting. As a listening experience, it takes some time getting used to 15mins. of the most gradual percussion buildup you've ever heard, and then the Big Boom, and then back down. It seems a little longer than its running time...

This is the second time I've listened to it. I had the same reaction both times. n a way, it reminds me of Denisov, which, actually, could make sense (Karl!!!!)

I don't know what happened just there



anyhow-


Yea, I don't know how I feel about this document of the 'Universe'. I hear the Reinhardt is "loud throughout", which... scares me. I'm not locking for an hour of cacophony. The Centaur version seems to me to be "too" brilliant for its own good,... but... well, maybe I like thinking about it. One really doesn't need to hear it that much,... just get it IN you and then let it unfold inside you as you thi nk about it... maybe?


any thoughts?

[snyprrr]

There is sure something almost ultra-modern that came out of his music (and innovations).

With the Universe Symphony, I've actually only heard the Larry Austin realization, so I can't comment as of yet.

The symphony (as I've heard it) is so cosmic and complex, it makes me wonder about Stockhausen's landmark (you know  )
The idea of such independence between so many instruments, controlled very systematically and dynamically really ensures Ives place as a precursor to Darmstadt. I wonder if they ever heard Ives, I haven't read so 

Just some...ah...thoughts 

Yea, I'm starting to wonder myself if Ives isn't being purposely ignored in favour of the European Hegemony... long live king Charles!!!!!


Larry Austin... that's the Centaur I believe...

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/krwdpmuMRzA

[SurprisedByBeauty]

There is sure something almost ultra-modern that came out of his music (and innovations).

With the Universe Symphony, I've actually only heard the Larry Austin realization, so I can't comment as of yet.

The symphony (as I've heard it) is so cosmic and complex, it makes me wonder about Stockhausen's landmark (you know  )
The idea of such independence between so many instruments, controlled very systematically and dynamically really ensures Ives place as a precursor to Darmstadt. I wonder if they ever heard Ives, I haven't read so 

Just some...ah...thoughts 

I have to say that I think very little of the idea of Ives as a proto-Avantgardist... but there are, of course, some interesting similarities... at least superficial ones. But really, I think that Ives is much closer to being a genuine American Mahler than Stockhausen being a genuine European Ives.

[torut]

Charles Ives's Concord: Essays after a Sonata by Kyle Gann (University of Illinois Press)
[asin]0252040856[/asin]

will be released on May 30, 2017

[snyprrr]

Does Ives start EVERY piece with such a luscious fog drenched mystery? I love it all, lol!!


This is more to shed light on the Set No.2 (Centaur). The first piece (?) had such a delicate balance of percussions, and did I hear a harpsichord and then piano- I love Ives's kitchen-sink approach to everything...

But I've been drenching in Ives's America for a week now and seems like such the Compleate Musician, so towering- THE UltraModern...


And so- HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY- Ormandy or MTT I suppose? I listened to the latter,- boy I really do love this music-


woo hoo!!

[Mirror Image]

HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY

Any recommends?

MTT
Bernstein
Zinman
Ormandy
Dallas SO
Naxos?
one more?

I can heartily recommend Sinclair's and MTT's. Andrew Davis is also excellent and has really impressed me with his Ivesian credentials as of late. What performance are you referring to when you say Dallas SO? Also, Ormandy's Holidays recording isn't readily available --- I know it's been reissued via RCA Japan, but the price is astronomically high. Nobody in their right mind would pay what they're asking for that recording.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

I can heartily recommend Sinclair's and MTT's. Andrew Davis is also excellent and has really impressed me with his Ivesian credentials as of late. What performance are you referring to when you say Dallas SO? Also, Ormandy's Holidays recording isn't readily available --- I know it's been reissued via RCA Japan, but the price is astronomically high. Nobody in their right mind would pay what they're asking for that recording.

Now I'm intrigued, though.
And is 17 Euros / 15 Pounds really that crazy an asking price for a CD these days? I mean, yes, steep for the discount-spoiled... but not loonie. I know I'm trying to convince myself it ain't. 

[Mirror Image]

Now I'm intrigued, though.
And is 17 Euros / 15 Pounds really that crazy an asking price for a CD these days? I mean, yes, steep for the discount-spoiled... but not loonie. I know I'm trying to convince myself it ain't. 

It's a crazy price for a manufactured-on-demand CD, but that's just my opinion.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

It's a crazy price for a manufactured-on-demand CD, but that's just my opinion.

Oh, it's like an Arkiv-CD, not a regular re-pressing? Didn't notice that.

[Mirror Image]

Oh, it's like an Arkiv-CD, not a regular re-pressing? Didn't notice that.

Yep, unfortunately.

[TheGSMoeller]

Ives of March? You know i'm in.

I thought i saw this recording mentioned somewhere, perhaps by John (M.I.), but I've recently purchased the Vinyl of Stokowski's 4th. Got a new record player for Christmas and need to start building up my collection of LP...

[Mirror Image]

Ives of March? You know i'm in.

I thought i saw this recording mentioned somewhere, perhaps by John (M.I.), but I've recently purchased the Vinyl of Stokowski's 4th. Got a new record player for Christmas and need to start building up my collection of LP...

Yep, I'm totally into the Ives of March as you know. Yeah, it was me who mentioned that Stokowski recording. Truly a sonic marvel for sure. On the CD I own of it (a Japanese only release), it's coupled with the Robert Browning Overture.

[Karl Henning]

The Ives Third Symphony, as well as any piece of his, illustrates my own private evolution in coming to terms with this seminal American composer.

The background

When I was in region bands (jr high and high school) I played in the Country Band March (which duplicates material in the "Comedy" of the Fourth Symphony – I now read in Wikipedia that that movement of the Fourth Symphony is an expansion of The Celestial Railroad (after Hawthorne) for piano solo, which invites curiosity about the relationship between The Celestial Railroad and the Country Band March), and I heard another group play the band transcription of Schuman's orchestration of the "America" Variations.  I was not necessarily sure what I thought about either piece, apart from just finding them good fun.

So, I go to college, and of course I am predisposed to think well of an American experimental composer!  The Unanswered Question enchants me at Wooster;  the "Concord" Sonata wins me immediately at Buffalo.  In between, in the orchestra at UVa, I play IIRC second clarinet in the Second Symphony . . . the Symphony doesn't ring my bell, in large part because I do not find Clarinet 2 at all a gratifying experience, most of it either just one strand in a mushy texture (these were my feelings at the time, you understand), or just doubling someone else.  This is the source of my feeling, a feeling which for a long period overshadowed my appreciation of the Ives symphonies, that he was an orchestral amateur, but that I could not much fault him because his symphonies were not performed at the time he was writing them, so that he did not draw the benefit of experience/feedback.

The Third Symphony

I don't say I necessarily remember it (cf. my report on my first listen to the Lenny Les noces), but I had cassettes with the Ives symphonies, at a guess, the MTT versions.  So (call this lazy listening on my part) the first time I heard the Third, I just felt that my prejudice was confirmed.

Fast forward to GMG, and the encouragement to try the Litton/Dallas recordings of the symphonies.  I am not saying that Litton is better than MTT here (I have not done a comparison), but my ears were freer at that point, and I simply enjoyed the Third (as all of the four) for what it is.

And now, revisiting the piece as recorded by both Litton and Lenny, I do genuinely love the Third Symphony.

Will I love the Second?  Well, let me give it a try . . . .

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Of course Webern and Varese where the model but Ives' ideas where like precursors to Darmstadt, for a majority of Ives' work I agree with you but he had quite a few really radical, 1950s sounding moments. It wasn't just Darmstadt either, Cage had some slightly more esoteric ideas that can be found in a more straight forward way in Ives' Symphony no 4.

Symphony no 4, in someways had Gruppen-isms but it also reminds me of Cage pieces like Apartment House 1776 for instance. Many of his chamber ensemble works remind me a lot of Ligeti, Nancarrow, Xenakis (to a smaller extent) and there is probably more I missed too

Hah, for a second I thought: I really agree with the guy you are responding to. Turns out that was me, after all.
Thing is, Darmstadt-composers didn't, to my knowledge, know a lot of Ives, if any. So his sounding like some of what they did would be more incidental than anything else. I also think it comes out of a very different motivation. I could see how Cage would have been very aware of Ives, though... and the smile in Cage, for all his modernism, suggests something that is perhaps closer to the naive (?) beauty of Ives than the more academic innovation that came from the Darmstadt-staples. (Actually, a lot of very much non-avantgarde composers also came out of Darmstadt, but just didn't get the traction.)

I don't, however, argue that his works doesn't seem to pre-shadow the works you mention. Only that there is no or much less a link than it could appear.

[Mirror Image]

The Ives Third Symphony, as well as any piece of his, illustrates my own private evolution in coming to terms with this seminal American composer.

The background

When I was in region bands (jr high and high school) I played in the Country Band March (which duplicates material in the "Comedy" of the Fourth Symphony – I now read in Wikipedia that that movement of the Fourth Symphony is an expansion of The Celestial Railroad (after Hawthorne) for piano solo, which invites curiosity about the relationship between The Celestial Railroad and the Country Band March), and I heard another group play the band transcription of Schuman's orchestration of the "America" Variations.  I was not necessarily sure what I thought about either piece, apart from just finding them good fun.

So, I go to college, and of course I am predisposed to think well of an American experimental composer!  The Unanswered Question enchants me at Wooster;  the "Concord" Sonata wins me immediately at Buffalo.  In between, in the orchestra at UVa, I play IIRC second clarinet in the Second Symphony . . . the Symphony doesn't ring my bell, in large part because I do not find Clarinet 2 at all a gratifying experience, most of it either just one strand in a mushy texture (these were my feelings at the time, you understand), or just doubling someone else.  This is the source of my feeling, a feeling which for a long period overshadowed my appreciation of the Ives symphonies, that he was an orchestral amateur, but that I could not much fault him because his symphonies were not performed at the time he was writing them, so that he did not draw the benefit of experience/feedback.

The Third Symphony

I don't say I necessarily remember it (cf. my report on my first listen to the Lenny Les noces), but I had cassettes with the Ives symphonies, at a guess, the MTT versions.  So (call this lazy listening on my part) the first time I heard the Third, I just felt that my prejudice was confirmed.

Fast forward to GMG, and the encouragement to try the Litton/Dallas recordings of the symphonies.  I am not saying that Litton is better than MTT here (I have not done a comparison), but my ears were freer at that point, and I simply enjoyed the Third (as all of the four) for what it is.

And now, revisiting the piece as recorded by both Litton and Lenny, I do genuinely love the Third Symphony.

Will I love the Second?  Well, let me give it a try . . . .

Thanks for this stroll down memory lane, Karl. Most illuminating indeed. Ives was one of the first composers I got into (along with Bartók). The first work I heard by Ives was Lenny's recording of Symphony No. 2 on DG. I was completely transfixed. I never heard anything like it before or since. Here was a composer that was standing in the doorway of the Romantic tradition's past while clearly looking forward through modernistic lenses. Even when the music veers close to chaos, there's always clarity in the ideas and everything just makes sense despite all of these disparate stylistic elements being out-of-sync. Ives found a way to make it work. Whenever I finally heard the rest of the symphonies, my admiration for his music had pretty much been solidified by that time. Symphony No. 3, "The Camp Meeting" is one of those works that gave us yet another glimpse of the composer. You could very well call this symphony his 'pastoral'. Extremely lyrical, but there is some weirdness that lurks not too much below the surface. I really need to do a more careful listen of the 3rd, so I can refresh my memory, but, to be honest, Ives didn't compose any symphonies that weren't worth hearing. Call this good old fashioned bias, but I really do feel he's the greatest American composer. Don't get me wrong I love Copland, Barber, etc., but there's something otherworldly yet completely down-to-earth about Ives' music that sets him apart from other American composers.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for this stroll down memory lane, Karl. Most illuminating indeed. Ives was one of the first composers I got into (along with Bartók). The first work I heard by Ives was Lenny's recording of Symphony No. 2 on DG. I was completely transfixed. I never heard anything like it before or since. Here was a composer that was standing in the doorway of the Romantic tradition's past while clearly looking forward through modernistic lenses. Even when the music veers close to chaos, there's always clarity in the ideas and everything just makes sense despite all of these disparate stylistic elements being out-of-sync. Ives found a way to make it work.

I've just listened to the Second, and split my bagels if Lenny has not made me care about the piece more than ever I did before.  And it's that threshold between the two epochs, and Lenny's affinity for both sides of the threshold, which probably drives it all.

[Mirror Image]

I've just listened to the Second, and split my bagels if Lenny has not made me care about the piece more than ever I did before.  And it's that threshold between the two epochs, and Lenny's affinity for both sides of the threshold, which probably drives it all.

That's great to hear, Karl. Ives' first three symphonies can be seen as still having a door open to the Romantic tradition, but this adherence to that tradition does not in any way, shape, or form mean that this is old-fashioned music. Quite the contrary. Only perhaps with his first symphony do we hear a more conservative slant in the music, but I've always viewed Ives' 1st as an homage to his teacher, Horatio Parker.