"You dang kids these days and your atonal composers! It's too much! I can't take all that cacophony!"
Posted on 06/29/2008 4:30:50 AM PDT by Apollo 13
It is Sunday and I am in the mood to probe the interest at FR for one of America's all time greatest artists and more specifically, classical composers: Charles Ives. I learned about him via composer, lyricist, and Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks (also a true American original). And my love has, since it began in 1990 or thereabouts, never diminished). I have all of his recorded works and would not want to single out one masterpiece, they're all great, with the possible exception of the First Symphony (mainly because there's still too much Schumann and Brahms in there, and too little American quirkiness, so to speak). Some of the pieces I have thrice, because it's so lovely to compare Bernstein's, Tilson-Thomas', and Seiji Ozawa's view on them. The 'Concord Sonata' is a masterwork, a personal meditation on four American sages. Ives is a most metaphysical composer, able to translate poetry and philosphy directly into music of the first magnitude, without intermittent rationalization of it all. And he's a poet himself. I mean, just take the titles and subscripts of his works... 'Calcium Light Night', 'Central Park In The Dark', 'Three Places In New England', and many more. I love the man. Any more diehards out there?
Van Dyke Parks
Is he the one that sings or writes the music for Harold and the Purple Crayon?
Great kids music.
John Phillip Sousa no greater composer for all American music.
I do not care for Ives — hurts my ears. As does Copeland.
Classical Mysic Ping: Ives Rocks!
The Ives songs for piano and voice are some of the most haunting and difficult to perform/comprehend in the literature of the time.
THanks for posting this. There aren’t many american composers of his generation that reach his level of complexity and uniqueness. He is barely known in europe though.
Charels Ives. Any relationship to Burl Ives?
Your ears are primitive then.
Train them and educate them.
He is. He gets his main income from composing film scores and collaborated with Ry Cooder on lots of these. He also did the soundtrack for ‘Popeye’ (Robert Altman - brilliant stuff, seek out a 2nd hand LP) and ‘The Brave Little Toaster’. Great, modest, humble, and learned man. I met him two times in person - no friendlier guy in music than he.
Thanks for the post. Yes, Ives has given me enormous pleasure over the years. Especially “Three Places in New England” (and especially “Concord”).
And here’s to Van Dyke Parks as well. I loved the “Orange Crate Art” album he and Brian Wilson did some years back. Van Dyke is one of those people who should be treated as a national treasure.
His tunes are romantic and completely recognizable if one learns how to listen.
It requires a special kind of attention span, not just hearing.
It’s just like reading a book by Joyce. Dense and complex. Keep trying.
Your wife must be very gifted. I thank her for her contribution to the survival of real culture in america.
I was in the NYU Glee Club, singing some of his music when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. His music was interesting, but left me cold.
...and that is Europe’s loss. Ives’ music is unique - his is not ‘linear’ in the way that most European art music is, even the difficult twelve-tone stuff and so one. Ives tried to write a music much based on ‘the voice of the people’, true democrat (in the American sense, not the liberal one); he could start with the mental image of an American feast day, or even a ship disaster, and then proceed with jotting down what occurred in his head by association... the sound of alarm bells ringing, all kinds of folks in all directions talking upset, general upheaval (in the case of a calamity), or contrariwise, with the merry sound image of children singing, interspersed with different folk tunes and standards played by numerous marching bands present at the feast. It all seems to happen simultaneously, as it does in real life (Ives disliked precious decorum), like when you try to direct your attention to everything that is happening around you at a carnival. That he really succeeded to transform all those impressions into revolutionary classical music is his triumph... and I do not know one other composer over the ages that achieved this. Compared to Ives, Frank Zappa was an amateur, and one with lots of profanity and filth to boot.
I like Ives. I’m really beginning to love the American Composer
Leroy Anderson. He had such interesting tunes as the Typewriter and the Syncopated Clock. I just bought the iTunes Arther Fiedler and the Boston pops version with also the Irish suite tunes on it. It had 21 compositions for $9.99. That’s like $0.49 per composition. You also get Sleigh Ride a famous Christmas Tune.
Your ears are primitive then.
Train them and educate them.
&&&
Well, I guess I am just too backwards to attain your superios tastes, O, Exhalted One. Please, I beg you, forgive me for knowing what I prefer in art.
His music was interesting, but left me cold.
&&&
Beware, aristotleman may accuse you of having primitive ears, as he did with me.
My ears are at least as primitive as the rest of me.
LOL
I have a recording by the Kronos Quartet that has a song on it called “They Are There”, featuring an obviously inebriated Charles Ives singing and playing the piano. Strange stuff, to say the least...
I’m sorry to report to you that this hasn’t a thing to do with taste/likes and dislikes.
you said “it hurts my ears”.
It hurts them because they aren’t equipped to comprehend it without certain effort and action.
Europe looks down upon american composers regrettably. Their loss.
The amount of innovation that Ives brought to the harmonic realm is just astounding. Especially in his piano music. Many times he created dense and demanding structures that cannot be played as written. He is an Einstein in every sense. Every time I write for piano, I feel the urge to borrow or pay homage to his ideas.
Most of all I admire that he was Real.
Ives associated discordant music with masculinity. The Classical Music establishment in the United States of the time was run by women and he was uncomfortable with its effeminate associations. ‘Stand up and use your ears like a man!’ Ives actually spoke like this.
Was it Carl Ruggles who said, “Stand up and use your ears like a man!”?
I agree with him. Statements like “it hurts my ears” bother me to the extreme, in fact.
Rich, dense, complex music requires one to evolve their sense of hearing and comprehension beyond the passive abilities that their environment gave them over the years.
Foster, Sousa and Joplin bridge the High/Low divide like no other 19th century American composers. Though Foster was really a pop composer.
(see post #24)
Discordant, dense music:
The ultimate manliness.
They bridge it in such a perfect way. I can’t easily find their equivalents in european music.
I’ve always thought that it’s very unfortunate that “serious” american composing in the 19thc-early20thc took a while to root, become accepted and popular. You can count those guys on one hand (almost).
Because only a few people wrote, they were more open minded to other musical influences, they didn’t carry the chip on their shoulders that europeans did at the time, so they fully accepted bridge composers and styles.
I love the American Spirit.
Accepting, pioneering, open to changes.
Which is why I dislike it when americans refuse to assimilate this music.
It’s the ONLY musical history you have!!
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ve been looking for some insight into that period -largely ignored in music history classes (even here!).
About the european bridge composers:
I forgot about Offenbach and Strauss. I don’t remember reading anywhere about the level of acceptance or disapproval they enjoyed amongst their more serious colleagues.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ve been looking for some insight into that period -largely ignored in music history classes (even here!).
About the european bridge composers:
I forgot about Offenbach and Strauss. I don’t remember reading anywhere about the level of acceptance or disapproval they enjoyed amongst their more serious colleagues.
Strauss Jr. was one of the few contemporary composers that Brahms admired. R. Strauss called him the ‘Laughing Genius of Vienna’.
I grew up listening to Strauss waltzes and spanish tangos on my dads Blaupunkt record player (a gian piece of furniture)
So there was no ill feelings by R. Strauss....I bet people got them mixed up a lot, they still do.\
I wouldn’t have expected that the composer of the Frau ohne schatten, and Egyptian Helen thought well of the other Strauss. Especially given that he was sometimes a snob, even when it came to Mahler’s music. But that might have been rivalry.
Great call.
I would like to direct the interested unitiated towards Ives’ works on the superb Naxos label, non-elitist, educational, and inexpensive. My latest purchase was ‘Three Orchestral Sets’, with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Ives scholar James Sinclair. It has the bonus of featuring the world première of a reconstructed version of the Third (and unfinished) Set. Sound quality and performance are fantastic, it is like rural marching bands are making their way through your listening room...
And it sells at € 7.00, that would mean around $ 8.00 or so. Investigate, and if you don’t like it then give it as a present to your fellow man!
BTW: I am Dutch. It’s been a great joy, but also a not-so-easy task to collect Ives over the years. His music doesn’t tend to stay in print for long overseas. But I am happy with what I have.
PS: a great, albeit somewhat pricier introduction to Ives is the disc by Bernstein and the NYPO on Deutsche Gramophone. It has his Third Symphony and is filled to the brim with various pieces, e.g. ‘The Unanswered Question’, which is breathtaking in its... ahem... unansweredness (in a religious/metaphysical way, I mean). It was recorded at NY’s Avery Fisher Hall and sounds marvelous.
Wowee! This post of yours is a real gift! I see a lot of my disks in the recommendations too... Esp. the symphonic work under Tilson-Thomas on the now-defunct CBS Masterworks label.
Many, many thanks out of Holland.
Ives’ “Variations on ‘America” is an interesting piece. My favorite American composers of classical music are Lowell Mason, probably best known for composing the Christmas carol “Joy to the World” (1836), and George Gershwin.
...and Gershwin in turn was THE inspirator for my own American popular music hero: Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. He taught himself to play the piano and from 1962 to this day he plays ‘Rhapsody In Blue’, to feel good and lift himself out of a bad mood...
It’s safe to say that without Gershwin, Brian Wilson’s triumphant masterpieces ‘Pet Sounds’ and ‘SMiLE’ would never have seen the light of day.
Coming up tomorrow: my thread on another American treasure: guitarist John Fahey (well, since I consider this one a resonant success, I feel new encouragement).
But do continue to wrote about Ives... I just love your replies on this one!
Cheers, A13.
The hidden gem of his recordings is the specially issued CBS Centennial Boxed set....absolutely fantastic collection including recordings of Ives himself at the piano...singing!
The Kronos quartet later "remixed" one of his vocals into a brand new composition. Ive's is a great American original.
The Concord Sonata rocks....I still play it in my car at full volume when I pull up to a hot chick at a stop light.
A bit of trivia: Bruce Hornsby used the opening phrase from the 3rd movement of the Concord Sonata ("The Alcotts") as the intro to the tune "Every Little Kiss" on his platinum "Way it Is" album.
I recently read the autobiography of Nicolas Slonimsky in which he has a lot to say about Charles Ives.
Ives associated discordant music with masculinity.
^^^
Okay, well, then maybe that explains it: I am a woman.
I believe ‘Joy to the World’ was adapted from Handel’s ‘Messaiah’.
Just in Europe? On a name recognition test I'll bet only about one percent of Americans know who he was. But then again any classical composer of this century would only get little more than one to ten percent of Americans knowing who they were. I can't say that I love his music, but I thought his piece on the circus was very interesting.
You are on the right track. Keep listening to other pieces he wrote. I recommend his songs. A lot of them are based on protestant hymns (with a twist). You may find those easier to stomach at first hearing.
Handel was a contemporary of Isaac Watts, who wrote the words to “Joy to the World,” but Mason—a fan of Handel—may or may not have adapted melodies from The Messiah to create the song.
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