Charles Ives

[Joe Barron]

On a completely unrelated note, the last chord of the Second Symphony makes me chuckle every time!

Interesting thing, though. That last chord wasn't added until 1942. The original score, from about 1902, ends with a conventional cadence. Some had said Ives should have ledt well enough alone and not revised the work 40 years later. For my own part, I think the piece wouldn't be the same withtout it.

Guido, I haven't listened to the Emerson Concerto in a long while. I'll gewt bac to you when I've had the opportunity to listen again.

[Joe Barron]

Interesting Joe - I have MTT's Holidays and also Zinman's. Maybe I should look into getting that one too?

I think if you have MTT's, you're all set. I bought the Ormandy for teh sake of completeness. I also have Zinman and Bernstein and Johanos (on LP) and one other one I can't recall. It can't take it, Jerry. It's  much. It's too much!

[johnQpublic]

On a completely unrelated note, the last chord of the Second Symphony makes me chuckle every time!

The best musical example of a composer thumbing is nose at the world. It should always produce a chuckle.

[Guido]

Interesting thing, though. That last chord wasn't added until 1942. The original score, from about 1902, ends with a conventional cadence. Some had said Ives should have ledt well enough alone and not revised the work 40 years later. For my own part, I think the piece wouldn't be the same withtout it.

That is indeed fascinating. Did he add dissonance to the whole score, or just this bit? Obviously this was long before Bernstein expressed an interest in conducting it.

I recently read that famous Maynard Solomon article about Ives' supposed alteration of dates... Don't know what to think of it. Of course most Ives scholars reject this view, but I haven't seen a point by point debunking of his claims. It shouldn't matter, but for some reason it does, perhaps because part of the mythos and charm of the Ives legend rests on it being before Stravinsky and Schoenberg and the other modernists. My inclination is to more or less trust Ives, but I'd like to read more responses to Solomon's article.

[Joe Barron]

That is indeed fascinating. Did he add dissonance to the whole score, or just this bit? Obviously this was long before Bernstein expressed an interest in conducting it.

I recently read that famous Maynard Solomon article about Ives' supposed alteration of dates... Don't know what to think of it. Of course most Ives scholars reject this view, but I haven't seen a point by point debunking of his claims. It shouldn't matter, but for some reason it does, perhaps because part of the mythos and charm of the Ives legend rests on it being before Stravinsky and Schoenberg and the other modernists. My inclination is to more or less trust Ives, but I'd like to read more responses to Solomon's article.

After Solomon's article appeared, Gayle Sherwood-Magee took him up on his challenge and began a systematic evaluation of Ives's manuscripts, analyzing the handwriting and checking the watermarks, and she concluded his dates are gereanlly accurate, allowing for memory lapses after 20 years. I believe I read somewhere that Solomon has recanted, but I can't verify this. In any event, it's no longer much of an issue. The only real damage done was that during the 1990s, after the Solomon published but before Sherwood did, the booklet of just about every CD of Ives' music contained some question of the dates, always followed the lame apology that it really didn't matter, anyway. ("Yes, he was a pathological liar and an unoriginal fraud, but who cares as long as we have fun?") You can actually date Ives CDs according to whether they include such a discussion. It will be a useful musicological tool in the future.

Gayle's own study of Ives, titled "Charles Ives Reconsidered," is due for publication next month. Maybe that will offer something definitive.

[Guido]

OK cheers Joe. I guessed as much, since as you say it is rarely discussed any more, but I was just a little unsure.

[Joe Barron]

Been listening to a lot of Ives the last few days---especially my various recording of Three Places. So far, the strongest single performance in Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony, but then, I haven't listened to Tilson Thomas and the BSO again yet.

I've also listened to MTT's performance of the Holidays again, and it is, note for note, the best perfromance I've heard, though there is an undefinable energy to the Ormandy's reading I still find very attractive.

Guido and anyone else who may be interested, maybe I spoke too soon about the dating controversies. Apparetnly, it's still going on, and the more I read, the more confusing it becomes. As Burkholder says, any dating of Ives' manuscripts is problematic, and the arguments of those who attempted to refute Solomon, as least in the 80s and early 90s, seem hopelessly subtle, or they fall back on some variant of "What difference does it make?" It might be hopeless. It's certainly depressing, and I'm sick of it.

I listened to the Emerson Concerto again, and while I think it's more successful than the other reconstructions, the definitive presentation of the material is still the Concord Sonata. I continue to insist that Ives' best music is found in the music he actually wrote.

By the way David G. Porter, the editor of the Third Orchestral Set, posted his own review of the Naxos recording as amazon. He takes issue with some of my comments.

[Joe Barron]

Anyone interested can see James Sinclair's complete descriptive catalog of Ives's music here. Dates are examined in detail for each piece.

[Joe Barron]

This is for all you Ivesians who might have missed the original broadcast.

My thoughts on the piece were  broadcast two weeks later.

[Guido]

This is for all you Ivesians who might have missed the original broadcast.

My thoughts on the piece were  broadcast two weeks later.

Nice one Joe! I also can't stand when people present Ives as a crank in both senses of the word. That impression must have come from somewhere... Maybe because he became cranky in his old age, when people began paying him attention?

[Guido]

http://www.charlesives.org/borrowedmain.htm

This has just been posted on the the Ives society website - all the hymn tunes and songs that Ives borrowed from especially recorded for the website - a lovely and entertaining resource!

[Joe Barron]

Guido, thaks so much for posting this link. You're right: it's a wonderful resource. I just spent a few minutes listening to the hymn tunes. I feel as though  I've been to church, and we never sang any of these hymns when I was growing up and was made to go to church. (Music at Catholic Masses is uniformly awful.) The more I become familiar with the tunes in their original forms, the more impressed I am with Ives's originality and achievement. He didn't just quote. He transformed. I'm listening to "Kathleen Mavounin" as I type, and I realize how different Ives's reworking in "The Pond" is.

I'm reminded of I hymn I wrote once. I was outside painting a wrought iron fence, and the church bells nearby starting playing a tune that sounded something like "In the Sweet Bye," though maybe not quite. As I painted, I improvised a few verses to go with it. In keeping with the tradition that the title should have nothing to do with the words ("Nearer My God to Thee" is "Bethany"?), I call it "Galilee." Everybody sing:


1.
There's a place that I know
Where I'm hoping you will go
When the Lord returns to call us home again.
We'll be happy up above
In the land of joy and love,
And you'll be wracked with endless horrid pain ---

Down in hell,
Down in hell.
Yes, the Lord will make you suffer down in hell.
I'll be there among the crew,
As the angels laugh at you,
When the good Lord makes you suffer down in hell.

2.
If you live in guilt and sin,
If you've let the devil win,
If you think that evolution might be true,
You'll learn better really fast
When the devil whips you ass,
And his evil minions beat you black and blue ---

Down in hell,
Down in hell.
Yes, the Lord will make you suffer down in hell.
If you want to stay away,
You'll do everything we say,
Or the Lord will make you suffer down in hell.

3.
If the dogmas of the Lord
Leave you questioning or bored,
You will see your hubris whittled down to size.
We'll just see how smart you are
When you're dropped in scalding tar,
And a stake is driven right between your eyes ---

Down in hell,
Down in hell.
Yes, the Lord will make you suffer down in hell.
You'll be left to sing the blues
As you burn among the Jews,
When the good Lord makes you suffer down in hell.

I always the Falwell people would be interested in it. 

[lukeottevanger]

Rousing stuff, Joe!!! 

[Joe Barron]

Rousing stuff, Joe!!! 

If only you could hear it to the tune I have in my head ...

[lukeottevanger]

To be published in the same hymnbook as Python's wonderful:

Oh Lord, please don't burn us.
Don't grill or toast Your flock.
Don't put us on the barbecue
Or simmer us in stock.
Don't braise or bake or boil us
Or stir-fry us in a wok.
Oh, please don't lightly poach us
Or baste us with hot fat.
Don't fricassee or roast us
Or boil us in a vat,
And please don't stick Thy servants, Lord,
In a Rotissomat.

(To be sung to the tune 'Creosote')

[lukeottevanger]

If only you could hear it to the tune I have in my head ...

God can, Joe. And that's what matters. 

[lukeottevanger]

Any idea what these could be, btw?

(As at the top of the page, next to the adverts for people looking to find singles in St Ives....)

[Joe Barron]

Is this ring tone thing real, or were you just having fun with Photoshop? I don't see a link in your post.

I'm also reminded of the 2000 Year Old Man's prayer to Philip, who was the God of the tribe until he was struck by lightning ("Very big, very strong, very powerful arms, I mean he could kill you. He could just walk on you and you could die"):

Oh, Philip,
Please don't take our eyes out
And don't pinch us
And don't hurt us.
Omayn.

[karlhenning]

Luke, that must be the lone inquisitive trumpet from The Unanswered Question.

Yes! You guessed!  It rings three times, then goes to voice-mail!  

[lukeottevanger]

Is this ring tone thing real, or were you just having fun with Photoshop? I don't see a link in your post.

No, it's real, one of those ads generated by the content of the page. I saw the same one earlier, but with Bach instead of Ives. Somehow that didn't surprise me so much. But I had to take a screenshot

Just to prove it, here's the larger image I took a screenshot of from which I trimmed this one. Check out the other Ives-related adverts!