Charles Ives

[Guido]

Glad you're exploring this wonderful composer - He's one of my all time favourites and its always good to have another Ivesian around.

For the songs you can do no better than start here - one of the finest song recitals ever recorded IMHO:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000005IVT/ref=dm_dp_cdp?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278977434&sr=8-1


The piano trio - I think the finest version by miles is on a Yo-Yo Ma CD of American works.


For the Concord Sonata, I still like this version:

which is just spectacular. The Barber Sonata is well played too though not my favourite account on record.

For the violin sonatas I have the naxos version which conveniently puts all four on 1 disc. The playing is very good - I'm certainly not wanting for another version, but then for me the sonatas aren't his greatest works.


I'm sure people will give you other recommendations too.

[Martin Lind]

Hi Guido

alas, the song cycle is only available as a Download in Germany and I hate Downloads. But the Yo yo Ma CDs is accessible and reasonable priced.

I know Ives for a very long time. When I was a young man they brought all his symphonies in German radio. I recorded that and since then I was a devotee to Ives. I listened to his symphonies, his piano sonatas, his piano trio, his string quartetts and his violin sonatas and other works.

Strangely enough my first enthusiasm for Ives somehow became less great then it was in the first time, but I think I should revive it. Therefore my questions.

What about the 6 volumes of Ives songs made by Naxos. Are they any good?

Regards
Martin

[Joe Barron]

Martin, a CD called "When the Moon" combines some of the songs in both voice-piano and chamber orchestra versions. Susan Narucki is the soprano soloist.  Out of print, but still available at Amazon, used or new. It's a beautiful recording that contains some of Ives's best music, in my humble opinion. My own five-star recommendation.

[Guido]

Yes, When the moon is very fine.

Haven't listened to the Naxos Ives songs but they didn't recieve universally good reviews, and they are somewhat illogically ordered. There's a good set of all the songs on 4 CDs starting early going to late (and greatest songs):
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Songs-Charles-Ives-Vol/dp/B0000049ML
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Songs-Charles-Ives-3/dp/B0000049MM/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_c
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Songs-Charles-Ives-Vol/dp/B0000049MN/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b

You can ship to germany very easily from england using amazon - I hugely recommend the DeGaetani disc I mentioned above - its only £6 second hand, postage may be 4 Euros or so, I'm not sure, but it's worth it!

[Joe Barron]

I second Guido's recommendation on the Albany set. I have it and like it very much, esp. Vol. 4.

[Mirror Image]

I like a lot of Charles Ives' music, especially the symphonies. I think Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 are two of the best American symphonies ever composed.

[Guido]

If you want the convenience of both pieces on the same CD, at a reasonable price & adequatelly conducted, try Leonard Bernstein:


[/quote]

I adore this CD - mainly for the shorter pieces - there's so much atmosphere in each one. Still my favourite Central Park and Unanswered Question, and also my favourite version of the far less recorded but equally beautiful and atmospheric Hymn: Largo Cantabile.

[Joe Barron]

Here is a recent interview with Jeremy Denk, who has just released a recordinng Ives's two piano sonatas.

It's not really very interesting, and this statement distubed me: "Mr. Denk argues that the Ives sonatas, composed early in the 20th century, are mistakenly categorized as avant-garde works rather than 'epic Romantic sonatas with Lisztian thematic transformations.'"

It would be enough to make me give up on Ives altogether if Denk's playing weren't more insightful than his commentary. I was glad to see the writer contradicted him.

It should be pointed out, howver, that Elliott Carter, in his mixed review of the Concord in 1939, said much the same thing, only with disapproval: "... it is basically conventional, not unlike the Liszt Sonata, full of the paraphernalia of the overdressy sonata school ..." Which was also nearly enough to make me give up on Ives. So what to a critic is overdressy is epic to a friend. Problem is, I don't like Liszt, and I do like Ives, and I don't like to think they have much in common.

I searched for the Denk CD at Amazon, but it was unavailable, and they say they don't know when it will be. Typical.

[Cato]

Here is a recent interview with Jeremy Denk, who has just released a recording Ives's two piano sonatas.

It's not really very interesting, and this statement distubed me: "Mr. Denk argues that the Ives sonatas, composed early in the 20th century, are mistakenly categorized as avant-garde works rather than 'epic Romantic sonatas with Lisztian thematic transformations.'"

It would be enough to make me give up on Ives altogether if Denk's playing weren't more insightful than his commentary. I was glad to see the writer contradicted him.

It should be pointed out, howver, that Elliott Carter, in his mixed review of the Concord in 1939, said much the same thing, only with disapproval: "... it is basically conventional, not unlike the Liszt Sonata, full of the paraphernalia of the overdressy sonata school ..." Which was also nearly enough to make me give up on Ives. So what to a critic is overdressy is epic to a friend. Problem is, I don't like Liszt, and I do like Ives, and I don't like to think they have much in common.

I searched for the Denk CD at Amazon, but it was unavailable, and they say they don't know when it will be. Typical.

40 years ago, the ultimate interpreter of the Concord Sonata was (according to many) John Kirkpatrick.

I am astonished that no CD of his recording is available: somebody is offering a vinyl LP for c. $30.00 on Amazon.

See:

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/1975/michaelsteinbergreview_kirkpatrick/

An excerpt:

Various events have been cited as crucial to the recognition of Ives in the profession (how tough that was!) and by the public, notably his 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Third Symphony, 43 years old but unperformed until April 1946. But the single moment when the tide turned was surely John Kirkpatrick's Town Hall recital Jan. 20 1939, when Lawrence Gilman responded in the Herald-Tribune by calling it "the greatest music composed by an American, and the most deeply and essentially American in impulse and implication." Kirkpatrick played the Sonata in Concord later that year, and no, having him back again, the cause won, made something altogether special of the concert. It was, however, far more than a sentimental occasion: the Sonata magnificently projects the range of Ives's poetic fantasy and untrammeled energy of invention, and Kirkpatrick, whom Gilman called "an unobtrusive minister of genius," still plays it incomparably.

My emphasis above.

[Joe Barron]

I've had that LP for more than 30 years.

[The new erato]

For the Concord Sonata, I still like this version:

Whenever I play this disc, I find the Concord consistenly overshadowed by the marvellous Barber.

[Joe Barron]

Whenever I play this disc, I find the Concord consistenly overshadowed by the marvellous Barber.

Never! 

[Guido]

I adore the Barber too of course, but I think John Browning's reading with the other solo piano music of Barber is unassailable - that is one of my favourite CD's of all time.

I also find it very frustrating that the Kirkpatrick recording is not available. I remember trying to find it reasonably priced for a few months but eventually gave up - surely one day it will be rereleased...

Joe - For me, what makes the Concord so remarkable is that it is both avant- guarde and an "epic Romantic sonata with Lisztian thematic transformations", if one wants to use that language. It continues in the line of Beethovinian transcendental striving (via Brahms), is unprecedented in terms of its iconoclastic musical language and its own peculiar beauty, and is also a monument to pure pianism and virtuosity a la Liszt or more movingly and perhaps more subtly Alkan.

[Joe Barron]

...perhaps more subtly Alkan.

Sorry, I don't know who that is. Where is the mention is Mr. Ives's originality? Even Carter gave him credit for that. Too much recent commentary on Ives emphasizes the influences to the exclusion of what he brought to the table. My problem with the Concord is that I have it on about nine or ten different CDs, and all  perfromances seem inadequate in some way, even Maruice Wrighrt's. Best version I've heard recently is Nina Deutsch on Vox, and I think the reason it's effective is that she takes the tempos very fast. She's a good eight minutes or so under most others. Unfortunately, she's not a sdelicate in teh Thoreau movement as I would like. Maybe I'm just over-familiar with it.

Barber hated Ives, by the way. There's a famous story that he walked out of the hall at Tanglewood (or whatever they have up there) when Copland told him something like, "Here at Tanglewood, we've decided Ives is a great composer." Sort of puts the lie to the idea that only modernists can't make room for other kinds of music.

[Dax]

For the songs you can do no better than start here

and it can be found at
http://singersaintsrecords.blogspot.com/2009/01/jan-degaetani-charles-ives-songs.html

[Guido]

Yeah Barber said he thought Ives was an "amatuer and a hack and couldn't put pieces together well". He didn't even like the songs (not even General Booth!). It's sort of understandable - Barber 's music is the absolute opposite of Ives in some regards - smooth and lyrical, completely logical and unchaotic, very traditional in technique if not always in sound. I'm absolutely sure that Ives would have dismissed Barber's music as soft and for old aunts.

The thing is, they are rather similar in many other ways - the concern for childhood, the uncoventional religious outlook, the highly intellectual literary interests, and even in the music - the aching nostalgia in both, the mastery of "added note" harmony, and supreme beauty achieved at some point in virtually every piece.

[OzRadio]

I just discovered Ives. Last week I picked up Three Places in New England (DG) on vinyl and enjoyed it. I then discovered the Naxos streaming site to which my university subscribes so I've been listening to his violin and piano sonatas (Naxos) and now his 1st symphony (Naxos). Great stuff, especially the symphony. Quite a bit more still to explore.

[Guido]

The four Symphonies plot Ives' development rather well, even if in actual fact their composition overlapped some what.

No.1 is a student work, youthful and Dvorakian, a young man trying to impress, although already the chinks are appearing in the traditional armour - little idiosyncrasies cropping up all over the place.

No.2 Is still rather European and romantic in its use of the orchestra, but Ives' personality has developed and comes through much stronger - here we have the hymn and marching tunes cropping up all over the shot and its already much wilder than anything from the 19th century. The sound is coincidentally similar to other American composers of 30 years later (most obviously Copland).

No.3 Is more radical still - hardly comparable to 19th century models at all really, the hymn tunes become the entire basis of the movements, the form is without precedent, the textures highly individual and atmospheric, technical innovations everywhere. And oh so beautiful.

No.4 is possibly his finest achievement with the Concord Sonata. Here the radicalism and avant-garde technical aspects are no longer experiments and are completely integrated into a symphonic unity, even if that unity is completely novel and strange by traditional standards. The widest range of possible musical motives and styles are here juxtaposed and ultimately united in what is Ives' statement of universal religion - the form becomes metaphor, the metaphor becomes form.  It's a staggering achivement and one of the finest in the history of western music in my opinion.

Following this exponential curve of ambition you will not be surprised to hear that there was a Symphony No.5 planned - The Universe Symphony, which was meant to have several orchestras and choirs situated at the top of mountains and in valleys and do nothing less that capture the entire universe in tones. You'll also not be surprised to hear that it was never fully realised and exists only as sketches in various stages of completion. Some other composers have attempted to complete the work but the results have been dull and disappointing.

In between here we have two other symphonies of sorts - the Two Sets for Orchestra - The Three Places in New England which are Ives' most accomplished and beautiful example of scene painting - another truly great work,  and the Second Set for orchestra with its extraordinary finale which seeks the heights of the fourth symphony (I'm not quite sure it manages it, wonderful though it is).

There isn't a piece by Ives that I don't love - every one has something beautiful to offer.

[Dax]

The Universe Symphony, which was meant to have several orchestras and choirs situated at the top of mountains and in valleys and do nothing less that capture the entire universe in tones. You'll also not be surprised to hear that it was never fully realised and exists only as sketches in various stages of completion. Some other composers have attempted to complete the work but the results have been dull and disappointing.

I assume you include Johnny Reinhard's realisation? I'm surprised anyone would find that dull.

[Guido]

Yes I include that one.

Forgot to mention of course, the Holidays Symphony, another masterpiece, which could be thought of as Symphony No.3.5, lying as it does in sound, achievement and technique somewhere between the 3rd and 4th symphonies. Maybe Symphony no.5 would be more sensible. Ramblings aside, it's another monumental achievement, though the large scale work by Ives that took me longest to assimilate and appreciate.