Posted on 11/21/2015 10:16:19 PM PST by WhiskeyX
Leonard Bernstein conducts Second Symphony of the american composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in 1987.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Edward Ives (/aɪvz/; October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernist[1] composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown,[2] though his music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, he came to be regarded as an "American original."[3][4][5] He combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatoric elements, and quarter tones,[6] foreshadowing many musical innovations of the 20th century.
Sources of Ives' tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs, the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives
Symphony No. 2 (Ives) The Second Symphony was written by Charles Ives between 1897 and 1901. It consists of five movements and lasts approximately 40 minutes. [....]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Ives)
Ping
Yep. Great article by Wolfe. And part of his prescient book “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.” If you haven’t read it, put it on your list.
But still, great music. Makes me want to say “just shut up and play!”
I played quite a bit of Ives in my time, mostly under the baton of Ives expert James Sinclair.
Any observations about Bernstein’s liberties with the composition that upset Ives?
Sorry, no. I’m not really that big an Ives fan, though some of his stuff was fun to play, especially on the big clarinets. (I somehow became an auxiliary clarinet specialist for a long time.)
I grew up in Danbury, CT, and thought Charles Ives was merely a local hero. It wasn’t until I moved West, that I came to realize how renown he was. Thanks for the post !
Yep.
Ives also had a day job, in the life insurance industry:
Soon after he graduated from Yale, he started work in the actuarial department of the Mutual Life Insurance company of New York.[13] In 1899, Ives moved to employment with the insurance agency Charles H. Raymond & Co., where he stayed until 1906. In 1907, upon the failure of Raymond & Co., he and his friend Julian Myrick formed their own insurance agency Ives & Co., which later became Ives & Myrick, where he remained until he retired.[14] During his career as an insurance executive and actuary, Ives devised creative ways to structure life-insurance packages for people of means, which laid the foundation of the modern practice of estate planning.[15] His Life Insurance with Relation to Inheritance Tax, published in 1918, was well received. As a result of this he achieved considerable fame in the insurance industry of his time, with many of his business peers surprised to learn that he was also a composer. In his spare time he composed music and, until his marriage, worked as an organist in Danbury and New Haven as well as Bloomfield, New Jersey and New York City.[11]
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