Ives in his own voice
November 6, 2024 6:21 PM Subscribe
October was the 150th anniversary of Charles Ives's birth (in 1874). It's always a good time to reconsider him.
Although famously an insurance executive, Ives had studied music at Yale and continued to work as an organist and to compose music even as he developed life-insurance packages for wealthy customers. He suffered from many ailments, real or mysterious, and after 1926, he stopped composing, saying "nothing sounds right". He continued to revise old compositions, however, retiring from business in 1930 and dying of a stroke in 1954 at the age of 80. Early on, his compositions did not attract much interest, but later, by the 1940s and 50s, composers and conductors began to champion him, and he was sometimes considered a pioneer of modernist American music; in the 70s, his music was inescapable on concert programs. However, his tinkering with old compositions led to questions of whether he made his old works appear more innovative than they actually had been. Today he may be best known for his symphony #3 "The Camp Meeting"(1908-10) (with different folk tunes battling it out in the second movement) , his transcendentalist orchestral piece "The Unanswered Question"(1908; revised 1934, in a splendid performance by Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic) and the "Concord" sonata (1909–47) [The third movement called "The Alcotts" played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard). His songs are loved for their mixture of avant garde and Americana. They are usually heard sung by trained operatic singers (as in this wonderful clip of Donald Gramm introduced by Aaron Copland), but it is revealing to hear this recording of Ives singing one of his own compositions, the World War I song "They Are There!" (1917; revised for WWII). He's not a good singer, but his untrained voice combined with the raucous jumble of the song sounds original and utterly American.
Although famously an insurance executive, Ives had studied music at Yale and continued to work as an organist and to compose music even as he developed life-insurance packages for wealthy customers. He suffered from many ailments, real or mysterious, and after 1926, he stopped composing, saying "nothing sounds right". He continued to revise old compositions, however, retiring from business in 1930 and dying of a stroke in 1954 at the age of 80. Early on, his compositions did not attract much interest, but later, by the 1940s and 50s, composers and conductors began to champion him, and he was sometimes considered a pioneer of modernist American music; in the 70s, his music was inescapable on concert programs. However, his tinkering with old compositions led to questions of whether he made his old works appear more innovative than they actually had been. Today he may be best known for his symphony #3 "The Camp Meeting"(1908-10) (with different folk tunes battling it out in the second movement) , his transcendentalist orchestral piece "The Unanswered Question"(1908; revised 1934, in a splendid performance by Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic) and the "Concord" sonata (1909–47) [The third movement called "The Alcotts" played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard). His songs are loved for their mixture of avant garde and Americana. They are usually heard sung by trained operatic singers (as in this wonderful clip of Donald Gramm introduced by Aaron Copland), but it is revealing to hear this recording of Ives singing one of his own compositions, the World War I song "They Are There!" (1917; revised for WWII). He's not a good singer, but his untrained voice combined with the raucous jumble of the song sounds original and utterly American.
Incredible post. Not being much in the know about the classical canon, I had kinda assumed Ives was in the same basket as Harry Partch. I guess not. Nice reminder of the robust avant-garde classical oeuvre.
posted by kozad at 7:29 PM on November 6, 2024
posted by kozad at 7:29 PM on November 6, 2024
I like the avant-garde Ives more than the Americana Ives, generally, but his first string quartet is lovely and very accessible.
posted by Vegiemon at 7:41 PM on November 6, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Vegiemon at 7:41 PM on November 6, 2024 [2 favorites]
Ives is a personal favorite, especially Three Places In New England and of course the Concord. A quote from Ives' Essays Before A Sonata (1920) inspired a social media account name of mine:
"Music may be yet unborn. Perhaps no music has ever been written or heard. Perhaps the birth of art will take place at the moment in which the last man who is willing to make a living out of art is gone and gone forever."
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 7:49 PM on November 6, 2024 [2 favorites]
"Music may be yet unborn. Perhaps no music has ever been written or heard. Perhaps the birth of art will take place at the moment in which the last man who is willing to make a living out of art is gone and gone forever."
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 7:49 PM on November 6, 2024 [2 favorites]
Fascinating. Ives is a name I've heard, but not much more than that. What a wonderful introduction. Thank you.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 3:50 AM on November 7, 2024
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 3:50 AM on November 7, 2024
I think the controversy around Ives' musical influences and the dating of his compositions misses the bigger picture: any piece of his, whether it quotes a century-old hymn or draws on modernist trends, is immediately recognizable as an Ives. Whatever blind spots he may have had as a composer or as a person, it's hard to argue that he was lacking in originality.
My personal favorite is the last movement of his fourth and final symphony, which the article from The Nation above dismissively calls "unprecedented sonic chaos". Listen with an open mind to the final few minutes, and you'll hear Ives employ dissonance in a way that's richer, subtler, and more contemplative that in most of his other works. Ives himself wrote that this work "seems to me the best, compared with the other movements, or for that matter with any other thing that I've done."
There's a nice recording of the symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas. Good luck ever hearing it at your local symphony hall, though! In addition to it's many technical challenges for performers, it requires some wild instrumentation such as a "quarter-tone piano" (with 24 notes per octave).
posted by SorryNotSaurian at 6:34 AM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
My personal favorite is the last movement of his fourth and final symphony, which the article from The Nation above dismissively calls "unprecedented sonic chaos". Listen with an open mind to the final few minutes, and you'll hear Ives employ dissonance in a way that's richer, subtler, and more contemplative that in most of his other works. Ives himself wrote that this work "seems to me the best, compared with the other movements, or for that matter with any other thing that I've done."
There's a nice recording of the symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas. Good luck ever hearing it at your local symphony hall, though! In addition to it's many technical challenges for performers, it requires some wild instrumentation such as a "quarter-tone piano" (with 24 notes per octave).
posted by SorryNotSaurian at 6:34 AM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
I don't know why but The Unanswered Question is very much what I needed to hear in the aftermath of the previous couple of days
posted by treepour at 11:32 AM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by treepour at 11:32 AM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
My all time favorite Ives story (and this came from a reputable source, although my memory is less than reputable) is that pre-prohibition he purchased an obscene amount of sweet vermouth so that he would still be able to have his nightly Manhattan. To the point that the estate was still giving away bottles as late as the 1990s to scholars of his work.
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:39 PM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:39 PM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
[Slaps head] If I had waited until today, my copy of The New Yorker would have arrived in the mail with this article on a 150-year-celebration of Ives in it: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/11/charles-ives-at-150-music-review. I'm delighted to see that 89-year-old Gilbert Kalish performed Ives's first piano sonata. Kalish is one of my favorite pianists!
Treepour: but if I had waited until today, I would have missed the emotional therapy of creating the post yesterday when I could barely function otherwise.
posted by acrasis at 3:28 PM on November 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
Treepour: but if I had waited until today, I would have missed the emotional therapy of creating the post yesterday when I could barely function otherwise.
posted by acrasis at 3:28 PM on November 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
I have listened to some Ives but not enough to have an opinion about it. But I have lately been thinking about finally reading Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise.
posted by neuron at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by neuron at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
Kronos quartet recorded an accompaniment to Ives singing They Are There! on their album Black Angels [youtube link]
posted by BrStekker at 6:57 PM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by BrStekker at 6:57 PM on November 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
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