Isn't the Ives Concord Sonata an absolutely horrid piece?

[thalberg]

I did a huge research project on this piece.  A hundred and thirty sources in over 5 languages.  I was convinced it was a rich piece full of great stuff.

Then I listened to it.......what an awful experience.  Pianists say it takes forever to learn and that it's not worth it in the end.

Who here wants to learn it and report back?

[ted]

I don't have the time or talent to play it but for some reason I really love Charles Ives's music. I think it is because he seems to have ignored all theories and complications and just wrote the sounds he loved regardless. They seem to me to have a wonderfully naive and endearing quality, quite unlike anything else in modern music. In the hands of a good player his music has a transporting power all its own.

Then again, I suppose it might simply be an acquired taste, like Blue Stilton, bagoong or balut.

For what it's worth my favourite players of his music are Noel Lee and Steven Mayer.

[retrouvailles]

I still like the piece, especially played by Aimard and Hamelin, but I cannot explain why. It has a certain charm to it.

[Bob]

I'd be aware of it, but I'm not learning that.   

Can you tell us more about it since you researched it?

I think a lot of contemporary music is like that -- lots of work, and that work doesn't transfer to many other pieces.  But it's art.

[furtwaengler]

I'm thinking of learning Eliot Carter's Night Fantasies, even though I know a few people that would much rather hear Ives's Concord Sonata.

I've no desire to learn the Ives. I know a guy who specializes in the piece and has taken it all around the world over the past ten years, but it seems it always has to be a "presentation" with powerpoint, pictures and lectures designed to "help" the audience grasp it...If this is the performer who really thinks the piece needs such a distracting show, then is he really convinced of the piece? If I want to listen to it, I'll just put on Pierre-Laurent Aimard who plays it much better than any presentation presents it

[mephisto]

I absoloutly love this piece. It's got everything. Even humour.

I feel it fits into a certain type of compositional period in the early 1900's where some composers were starting to write extremely insane cromatic music, wich I love to death.

[ahinton]

No.

By the way, Ives's The Celestial Railroad, which grew out of material in its second movement, opens Jonathan Powell's recital tomorrow evening at St. John's, Smith Square, London.

Carter's Night Fantasies is a far harder nut to crack, but very well worth it; given that he was never really a pianist, it is very much to his credit that this work and his far earlier and very different sonata for the instrument are so amenable to the player, even though they are very challenging to bring off successfully.

Best,

Alistair

[jpowell]

No!

I learned it about 20 years ago and played it a lot. I still think it's brilliant. There's nothing quite like it (except the best of Ives' other music, but then most of that doesn't have the utterly transcendent spirit of this piece) in the repertoire. For me, it's full of invention, power, subtlety, humanity and originality. So there!

And it didn't take "forever to learn" - probably a few months. You asked the wrong pianists!

[imbetter]

i hate this piece. it gives me a migrane.

[furtwaengler]

Actually, I've heard that after learning the Concord Sonata well once, it takes not long to work back to concert shape (2-3 weeks in the experience of one).

I'd like to find the John Adam's (I think) quote that Ives's music, like life, is filled with numerous contradictions, but all my brain will give me is, "John Adams's father did not in fact know Charles Ives..."

I love the idea though, and it again points to the absurdity of making every performance a doctoral thesis instead of allowing the piece to stand on its own as music.

In other words, to Thalberg...Do you think some of your problem with the piece is because you've so studied it academically that you've not approached it as music?  (Or is it the other way around?)

[counterpoint]

I have heard it once, but I cannot remember a single note.

Not very impressive.

[mephisto]

I don't think it is enough to just listen to this piece one time, before one decides wether this piece is horrid or not.

[pianowolfi]

I don't think it is enough to just listen to this piece one time, before one decides wether this piece is horrid or not.

I agree, I think music is not meant to be heard only once. It is meant to get a part of your life. And you, you alone, decide, what piece will get a part of your life or not. I need many many listenings or/and play-throughs to grasp a piece of music.

[soliloquy]

And it didn't take "forever to learn" - probably a few months. You asked the wrong pianists!

LOL.  Jonathan, I think asking a Sorabji/Finnissy virtuoso is the "wrong pianist" to be asking if it takes a long time to learn for pretty much anyone else


Anyway, I haven't really come to a full appreciation for this piece, and I've tried pretty hard.  I like the 2nd and 4th movements but the first is just sort of...... I don't know.


Too many notes or something.  I think someone said it gave them a headache; same here.

[prongated]

LOL. Jonathan, I think asking a Sorabji/Finnissy virtuoso is the "wrong pianist" to be asking if it takes a long time to learn for pretty much anyone else

...heh I think they are all correct. Maybe it's just that for the "other" pianists, a piece that takes a few months to learn and does not guarantee a full concert hall for them isn't worth considering...

[jpowell]

...heh I think they are all correct. It's just that for the "other" pianists, a piece that takes a few months to learn and does not guarantee a full concert hall for them isn't worth considering...

Yes, agreed. But is it really worth considering their opinion (which, as you rightly suggest, are often financially/career motivated) when evaluating the value and standing of a piece of music?

[prongated]

...hahaha no sooner did I consider rephrasing what I wrote, someone replied ><

...it is also possible that they do appreciate Ives' Concord Sonata without actually wanting to perform it for whatever reason...

...I think that's where we need you

[thalberg]

Actually, I've heard that after learning the Concord Sonata well once, it takes not long to work back to concert shape (2-3 weeks in the experience of one).

I'd like to find the John Adam's (I think) quote that Ives's music, like life, is filled with numerous contradictions, but all my brain will give me is, "John Adams's father did not in fact know Charles Ives..."

I love the idea though, and it again points to the absurdity of making every performance a doctoral thesis instead of allowing the piece to stand on its own as music.

In other words, to Thalberg...Do you think some of your problem with the piece is because you've so studied it academically that you've not approached it as music?  (Or is it the other way around?)

Probably your first way is correct.  Too much academics.  Although, I discovered that seems to be the best way to approach the piece.  There is a TON of stuff written about the Concord Sonata.    And it's actually rather fun to read about. Probably at least ten times more is written on this piece than is written about any other piece I've studied. 

Yet there's a paradox--while scholars write volumes about this piece, pianists hardly ever play it.  (I didn't say never, just hardly ever). 

What does that say?

It's like the opposite of the Berg Sonata--pianists play it all the time, yet very little is written on it.

And Powell, if you learned that beast in a few months, you have my great respect.