Ives, Charles (1874 - 1954)

[Sir Velo]

[richardfinegold]

He was very interested in spatial effects. I've seen more than 1 Ives piece performed where singers or instrumentalists were scattered around the concert hall.
I tend to think of him as the American Mahler.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I tend to think of him as the American Mahler.

Possibly known to Mahler, too; there is a note Mahler wrote during his time in New York to remind him to hire a set of tubular bells for the end of a symphony - tantalisingly suggesting Ives' Third.

[richardfinegold]

Yes - like someone nudging you in the ribs after telling you a joke and demanding "gedditt?" The source of the last chord of the Symphony was the tradition of the fiddlers at a barn dance ending the evening with a very short chord containing any note except the Tonic, as if leaving everything unresolved until the next dance. (IIRC, the dissonance is one of Ives' later ideas - originally it was a straightforward tonic, again, marked staccato - but it's an inspired ending to such a good-humoured, generous work.)

Bernstein tended to exaggerate music that felt was neglected and in need of proselytizing. It it is interesting to compare his first set of Mahler Symphonies with his last for DG. By the time of the latter cycle The music was much better known and LB tends to italicize less.

[Roehre]

Possibly known to Mahler, too; there is a note Mahler wrote during his time in New York to remind him to hire a set of tubular bells for the end of a symphony - tantalisingly suggesting Ives' Third.

Mahler positively planned to perform Ives 3.
It is even possible that there has been a playing through of the work, as can be heard in the reminiscences of one of the musicians interviewed for the centenary celebrations in 1960, as re-released on one of the CDs with all the piano rolls Mahler played [Mahler plays GLRS 101] and before that IIRC on one side of one of the original Bernstein CBS sets dedicated to one symphony only (the sixth?).

[Maclintick]

I have heard people refer to Charles Ives as "The Father of American Music"

A rather sweeping statement IMV - but then I find that I can take his compositions or leave them.

My loss, I'm sure.

HS

I'm sorry to hear that, HS. I know the orchestral horn repertoire is full of individual & collective gems, but I find the ending of Ives' Holidays Symphony, "Thanksgiving & Forefathers' Day" with its valedictory quartet of offstage horns intoning against a retreating procession of calming strings and church bells to be one of he most affecting passages in music, & the preceding climax as the chorus thunder out the hymn "Duke Street" against dissonant brass as powerfully moving as Mahler's "Auferstehen". GM famously declared that "The Symphony must be like the world" - Ives may or may not have been aware of the quote, but from the early 1900s had put this dictum into practice with his sonic tapestries of marching bands, church bells & revivalist hymns. There's also a link between Ives & VW through the New England transcendentalists.

Perhaps inevitably, one of the stumbling-blocks to greater appreciation of Ives in the concert hall must be the cost of the extras involved in performance. As with other Ives pieces, "Holidays" needs not just a large chorus, but various spatially-positioned mini-ensembles.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And a gift for horn players is the main melody of The Housatonic at Stockbridge, the orchestral accompaniment buzzing around the melody like bees around a buddliea, or drgaonflies over a river (the occasional pike snapping one up). And the emotional ache of the Music - Dante's remembrance of happier times at moments of sorrow. Wonderful stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4grS6KPGPA4

[Maclintick]

And a gift for horn players is the main melody of The Housatonic at Stockbridge, the orchestral accompaniment buzzing around the melody like bees around a buddliea, or drgaonflies over a river (the occasional pike snapping one up). And the emotional ache of the Music - Dante's remembrance of happier times at moments of sorrow. Wonderful stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4grS6KPGPA4

Pure poetry, FHG. I hope, Krystal, you're able to explore the recommendations of Roehre, FHG & RB, whose plug for Schuller's CD of the Orchestral Sets jogs memory of my own initiation into Ives - & Messiaen, come to that - via a Decca Phase 4 LP from the sixties featuring a resplendent LSO conducted by Stokowski, who championed a lot of contemporary music, unlike many latter-day maestros....

[Bryn]

Indeed. I would have included Central Park as well if I'd remembered, and the "Sets" for orchestras of various sizes which I used to have on a fascinating LP ("Calcium Light Night") conducted by Gunther Schuller.

Some 9 items from that Schuller disc have since appeared on a Sony re-issue of the old Bernstein recording of his version of the 2nd Symphony. Not Calcium Light Night, however: amazon.co.uk ASIN: B000AARL1Q

Calcium Light Night, by the way, was, along with Over the Pavements, my introduction to Ives's music (via the Third Programme). Harold Farberman was the conductor for Over the Pavements.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Pure poetry, FHG.

It is, isn't it! And what makes The Housatonic at Stockbridge even more astonishing is its placing as the last of the Three Places in New England - following on from the rubustious humour of the second movement, Putnam's Camp, where Ives reproduces the mistakes and miscounts of an under-prepared local band brilliantly. This in itself was worthy of admiration and was how it first appeared as an earlier composition Country Band March. For its reworking in the Three Places, Ives added the "dream sequence" (starting at about 2mins 15secs in this clip) - the kid sees a vision of the soldiers who are celebrated on the holiday, and we are given a foreglimpse of the mood of the Music of The Housatonic - before returning to the hapless (or, possibly, rather too happy, having spent a little too long in the beer tent before playing) band members, who somehow manage, in spite of everything, to finish together. Beethoven's Peasant's Merry-Making re-cast in New Engalnd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW1IAmk-ghw

[Bryn]

Which full orchestra recording of Three Places in New England would others here recommend. I find the old (as against the more recent 'choral') recording under MTT's baton to my liking.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Which full orchestra recording of Three Places in New England would others here recommend. I find the old (as against the more recent 'choral') recording under MTT's baton to my liking.

I think that (and Ormandy's less successful recording) is the only version I have on disc - the others are of the chamber orchestra "reduction". MTT's DG recording was the second record of Ives I ever bought.

[Padraig]

Which full orchestra recording of Three Places in New England would others here recommend. I find the old (as against the more recent 'choral') recording under MTT's baton to my liking.

I would hesitate to recommend my own CDs, Bryn. The Three Places I have and enjoy is a CD called Charles Ives A Radical in a Suit and Tie. It includes Symphony No3 and Piano Sonata No 1.

Since no-one else has done so I would draw attention again to a recent recommendation of your own - the EMI American Classics: Songs Orchestral Sets From the Steelples and Mountains. That's the one with Marni Nixon and John McCabe in thirteen wonderful songs.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would hesitate to recommend my own CDs, Bryn. The Three Places I have and enjoy is a CD called Charles Ives A Radical in a Suit and Tie. It includes Symphony No3 and Piano Sonata No 1.

A lovely programme, and reasonable price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-Suit-Tie-Charles-Ives/dp/B0018RWDJK/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1402686044&sr=1-1&keywords=charles+ives%2C+a+radical+in+a+suit+and+tie

... I didn't know that this was the full orchestral version.

Since no-one else has done so I would draw attention again to a recent recommendation of your own - the EMI American Classics: Songs Orchestral Sets From the Steelples and Mountains. That's the one with Marni Nixon and John McCabe in thirteen wonderful songs.

[Bryn]

I would hesitate to recommend my own CDs, Bryn. The Three Places I have and enjoy is a CD called Charles Ives A Radical in a Suit and Tie. It includes Symphony No3 and Piano Sonata No 1.

Ah yes, the old Walter Hendl recording, complemented by a Masselos recording of the First Piano Sonata, and the 3rd Symphony conducted by Richard Bales, who I must admit I have never otherwise heard of. Must give that a spin.

Since no-one else has done so I would draw attention again to a recent recommendation of your own - the EMI American Classics: Songs Orchestral Sets From the Steeples and Mountains. That's the one with Marni Nixon and John McCabe in thirteen wonderful songs.

Indeed, a fine compilation re-issue.