Charles Ives 1874-1954

New England composer

Ives, Charles (Edward)

• b Danbury, CT, Oct 20, 1874; d New York, May 19, 1954

• American composer. His music is marked by an integration of American and European musical traditions, innovations in rhythm, harmony and form, and an unparalleled ability to evoke the sounds and feelings of American life. He is regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century

Grove Dictionary online

Variations on America, organ

1891-92 (‘09)

• Intro

• Variation I

• Variation II

• Interlude

• Variation III

• Variation IV

• Variation V

March, “Intercolleiate”

The Circus Band, 1899 (1920)

• Ex. 1

• Ex. 2

Soliloquy, 1916-17

• Recording

At the River, 1916

• Ex. 1

• The Housatonic at Stockbridge

• Ann Street

• Serenity

• At the River

• The Cage

The Unanswered Question Assembled in 1934

• Ex. 1

• Ex. 2

• Ex. 3

• Full work

New England Holidays 1912-14 (‘30-’31)

• Fourth of July

• Ex. 1

• Ex. 2

• Ex. 3

• Ex. 4

Piano Sonata No. 2

“Concord, Mass., 1840-1860”

1911-15

Transcendentalism

Movement of 19th-century New England philosophers and writers. The Transcendentalists were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humankind, and the supremacy of vision over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. Part of the Romantic movement, it developed around Concord, Mass., attracting individualistic figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott. Bronson

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

Transcendentalist writers and their contemporaries signaled the emergence of a new national culture based on native materials, and they were a major part of the American Renaissance in literature. They advocated reforms in church, state, and society, contributing to the rise of free religion and the abolition movement and to the formation of various utopian communities, such as Brook Farm. Some of the best writings by minor Transcendentalists appeared in The Dial (1840–44), a literary magazine.

I. “Emerson”

• Emerson is greater—his identity more complete perhaps—in the realms of revelation—natural disclosure—than in those of poetry, philosophy, or prophecy.

• Ex. 1

From Ives, Essays before a Sonata

• Every “ultimate fact is only the first of a new series.”

• To him the ultimate of a conception is its vastness

• Absolute good—the divine truth underlying all life

• Emerson must be dubbed an optimist—an optimist fighting pessimism

• The power all great pictures have, Ruskin says,

• Which “depends on the penetration of the imagination into the true nature of the thing represented, and on the scorn of the imagination for lal shackles and fetters of mere external fact that stand in the way of its suggestiveness.”

• Truth was what Emerson was after—not strength of outline, or even beauty except in so far as they might reveal themselves, naturally, in his explorations towards the infinite.

• Emerson wrote by sentences or phrases, rather than by logical sequence

• The Godliness of spiritual courage and hopefulness—these fathers of faith rise to a glorified peace in the depth of his greater perorations.

• There is an “oracle” at the beginning of the Fifth Symphony—in those four notes lies one of Beethoven’s greatest messages. We would place its translation above the relentlessness of fate knocking at the door, above the greater human-message of destiny, and strive to bring it towards the spiritual message of Emerson’s revelations—even to the “common heart” of Concord—the Soul of humanity knocking at the door of the Divine mysteries, radiant in the faith that it will be opened—and that the human will become the Divine!

Charles Ives, Essays before a Sonata

1920

Concord Sonata

III. “The Alcotts”

Opens with hymn, Missionary Chant, in a clear key (B-flat)

III. “The Alcotts”

• Ex. 1

But ends repetition with surprising chord (A-flat), which then continues as the left hand under the melody in the original key (bi-tonal, wait till you hear Stravinsky!).

Second line introduces a theme, referred to by Ives as the “Human Faith” theme.

This is also related to a hymn.

Ex. 2

• Ex. 2

• Beth plays Beethoven’s 5th and Missionary Hymn Music becomes more complex

Ex. 3

• Ex. 3

• B section

• A

• B

• A

• B

Ex. 4

• Ex. 4

• First theme creeps in

• The Human Faith theme concludes the movement.

• Ex. 5