Charles Ives

[Lance Morrison]

I decided to start a new thread, so that we didn't hijack the one about pieces with all keys

Lance:

The short answer is that I like Charlie's music very much. I have many recordings of it and have listened to it regularly without tiring of it for thirty-five years. I do not play any of it but for the same reason I do not play most things - because my repertoire is necessarily small through concentration on my own music.

My experience was that the initial impression of a collection of idiosyncratic musical gestures soon gives way to a very special endearing universality expressed through sound. I think his piano music is very highly dependent on the performer - much more so than classical works or even ragtime and jazz based compositions. In the case of the first sonata, for instance, Joanna MacGregor's version is so different from, say, Noel Lee's, that some sections hardly sound like the same piece. Likewise for John Kirkpatrick and Steven Mayer, say, in the Concord. Ives himself, we are told, did not hesitate to alter things and improvise different versions of his piano pieces from one day to the next.

My opinion, and it is purely opinion, is that Charlie is at his best when he is not quoting bits and pieces of tunes or imitating brass bands, thunderstorms and church singing. For this reason my favourite sections are the darker, more nebulous regions of the first sonata, which, along with Thoreau and parts of Emerson in the Concord, reveal an amazing visionary landscape of sound to the receptive listener.

So the short answer is that I am still learning from his piano music. Like all piano composers of substance he created his own world - showed us a new way of playing, a way rich in power of expression and possibility of development.

    --Ted

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As usual I will have nothing good to say, but I needed to give Ives the respect he deserves by saying something at least

I really appreciate your response Ted. I have a particular fondness for Ives, since he was the first truly modern composer I fell for, and he certainly converted me into believing in modernism. When I first heard his music, I didn't like it at all, though it certainly intrigued me....I took a hiatus from him, and then one day, for whatever reason, I LOVED his music all of a sudden, like magic. Everything in his music which had sounded so ugly now sounded so natural. Honestly, I wish I could still hear his music with fresh ears once in a while, but that is one of the beautiful things in life, experiencing something totally new

I unfortunately only have a small number of Ives cd's (I try to diversify rather than focus on any one composer)....I have the one on Naxos with Symphony #2 and the Robert Browning Overture, one with a number of his songs and the orchestrated theatre versions of them, the famous cd of songs sung by DeGaetani, Aimard playing Sonata #2, a cd with Three Places and Symphony #4, and Tilson-Thomas conducting Holidays.

His orchestral works are so original and charming, though with many of the odd effects one has to wonder whether this man is an amateur (like young Boulez insisted) or a master. I havn't gotten to hear his chamber works.....of the solo piano pieces I have only heard sonata #2, but I must say that unfortunately this work dissappointed me. Perhaps I let my expectations get to high by waiting so long to hear it, I'm not sure, but the piece always leaves me wanting something more, especially in Emerson and Thoreau. Of course I also have a recording (Aimard) in which the work is played far slower than the composer had intended....yes, he altered many of his works so many times, and took pleasure when his music was incorrectly printed! This is of course a man who in some ways predates Cage's musical philosophy that sound = music. It is often exagerrated how modernist and iconoclastic Charlie was (as in Stravinsky's famous quote about him)....for me, the composer that Ives has the most in common with is Messiaen, though it is highly doubtful either knew about the other's music. Personally, I wouldn't want to do without all his musical quotations--I find they add layers of humor and poignance. I think they are intended to affect you by tickling your own memories, which doesn't work for most of us since much the music quoted is no longer common. This happened to me, in the way I think Ives intended in his own works, when I listened to Schönberg's 2nd string quartet, in which "Ach, du lieber Augustine!" is sounded briefly

I must say that my absolute favourites of any of Ives' works are a number of his songs. Though I have only heard a fraction of them, I suspect that he wrote too many lieder, perhaps to insure that this part of his output would be studied. Yet his great songs are just bloody original and wonderful, with brilliant piano parts. Ann Street, Like A Sick Eagle, Charlie Rutlege, Thoeau, The Houstonic at Stockenbridge, and The Things Our Fathers Loved are the finest songs I have ever heard!

Apologies for the uselessness of what I say; hopefully I'll be able to think of some things to add

apologies also for breaking my vow not to post! 

best wishes

--Lance

[Lance Morrison]

o-k, I need to bump this, because it is already down near the bottom, and I want there to be the chance that a few more people will see it. Yes, my topics always have enduring unpopularity, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Floristan]

I'm partial to Ives' songs as well and sometimes think it's his best form.  Wish he had done more.

I also agree with Ted that some of Ives best piano writing are the darker moments in the sonatas without the hoopla and effects.

Though I am still fond of the Ives' of the brass band and quoted tune and church singing and all the other pastiche he does.  It reminds me so much of those boxes Joseph Cornell made full of oddly juxtaposed and imprisoned bits of ephemera and found objects, exerting an effect both surreal and supra-real, making one feel nostalgic for a  time and place that never was, a neverland of a never past.  Eerie.  That's how how I often react to those Ives' works that contain lots of pastiche.

He was a total original.  None like him before or since.

[ted]

Although, strictly speaking, it does not concern his music, I cannot help feeling that he he was a nice, sensible, decent ordinary man. Despite being possessed by one of the most startlingly original artistic visions of his time, he never felt it necessary to fly off the handle in life. He was a good husband and a good father. In his own words, "If you are a man you must weaken for your family". These days, sadly, society seems to admire the individual who puts self before all else. From what I have read, Ives was a man of social and personal integrity who did what had to be done in life without compromising either those he loved or his artistic purpose. This was an achievement exemplary to us all.