CHARLES IVES: SYMPHONY #2
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein (1990)
People in the financial services industry will tell you that Charles Ives (1874-1954) was the inventor of life insurance as a tool of estate planning. He was one of the founders of Metropolitan Life Insurance and a giant of the industry. For decades he took a New Haven train from Danbury into Grand Central and then a trolley (after 1902 a subway) to his office on Ann Street in downtown Manhattan.
But Charlie had a secret life. His degree at Yale had been in music. He played organ at Central Presbyterian in New York and wrote sacred pieces that used modern techniques such as bi-tonality. He was the "crazy guy" who showed up at a New York theater after the night's performance and handed out cash to the musicians to try out one of his "crazy pieces." He was the white guy who showed up in Harlem after hours and played piano with the black musicians. He was the bearded fellow who attended all of Nicholas Slonimsky's concerts of modern music.
The Second Symphony was written over a two year period starting in 1900, and then it lay in a desk drawer until the late Forties when it was re-scored and finished. Charlie wanted to prove that he could write a Romantic symphony in the European tradition with American ideas, and he succeeded.
In 1950, it attracted the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who was the new boy at the New York Philharmonic and a champion of American music. Charlie had always promised himself that he would attend the premiere of the work should it ever happen, but he feared the reception and stayed home. He wouldn't even attend a rehearsal when invited by Bernstein. On February 22, 1951, his wife Harmony attended along with all the great American composers of the era who wanted to be present for history.
In those days, radio networks had their own orchestras, and classical music was broadcast regularly on the radio. CBS broadcast the premiere of the symphony, which is how Charlie heard it for the first time at the home of a neighbor. The symphony was a huge hit, and audiences loved it. At the end of the broadcast, Charlie silently left the room, too moved to speak.
It was the beginning of the music of Charles Ives going mainstream.
Charlie had diabetes, and it was diabetic complications following abdominal surgery that killed him a few years later at age 79.
This was to become Leonard Bernstein's signature piece. Bernstein called Ives, "Our first really great composer, our Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson of music." That label would stick. Bernstein recorded it twice with the New York Philharmonic. This was the second recording, done just before Bernstein's death in 1990.
It begins with a long, slow introduction in B minor, marked "andante moderato." You'll catch snippets from hymns, patriotic songs, dance tunes and Yale college songs. The brass take up a snippet of "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" while the strings play a figure from Bach's Third Brandenburg Concerto underneath, which leads to a snippet from the finale of Brahms' First Symphony. It cadences in D Major for a quiet close on English horn, but then...
There is an abrupt change to A-flat for the first movement proper, marked "allegro," which is in sonata format. You'll note "Bringing in the Sheaves" among the quotes in the first subject.
The quiet second subject in F Major quotes a Yale tune, which leads right into the development section.
The development takes the first subject and the introduction and works them up with a little quote from "Little Brown Jug" and a longer quote from Wagner's "Tristan." A passage with snare drums builds to a climax and the recapitulation.
The first subject recap is short, truncated by a run through the keys before bringing back the sheaves. The second subject recaps in its original key of F Major but develops a bit, having not been used in the development section. It leads seamlessly into an impassioned coda with a rousing chordal passage quoting a snippet of "Oh Christmas Tree" before ending quickly and quirkily.
The slow movement is in F Major and ternary format, marked "adagio cantabile." It begins like Wagner, but quotes a hymn that cadences into the penultimate line of "America the Beautiful." Snippets of that patriotic song are used as a motto. The cello gets a beautiful solo passage working the motto assisted by horn and reeds.
The middle section in G Major works with a variety of quotes before returning to F Major. There is a snippet of the second movement of Dvorak's Sixth Symphony that is quoted twice.
The opening material returns in abbreviated form. It ends sweetly and contentedly.
For the finale, Ives brings back the first movement's introduction in B minor, but a bit more slowly, this time marked "lento maestoso." But he cuts the introduction in half. This time, his key change is handled with a sense of anticipation rather than surprise, as he leads into...
The finale proper, marked "allegro molto vivace," in F Major and sonata format. You'll recognize some dance tunes and snippets from "Camptown Races" and "Turkey in the Straw."
He slows it down for the quiet second subject in A-flat based on "Anchors Aweigh," quoted on horn, and then some first movement material.
A short development speeds things up again with a quote from "Joy to the World." Both subjects are developed but in only a few bars.
The recap is also truncated, but now he adds a fugue! A snippet from "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" wanders into A-flat before the "Anchors Aweigh" snippet returns sweetly in F Major.
The coda gets wild! The first subject returns with "Reveille" underneath it, and everything gets restated but superimposed. You have to listen carefully to hear all the separate musical lines going at the same time. He wraps it up with "Reveille" and "Columbia" superimposed for a bravura finish, and the final note is the musical equivalent of an exploding cigar.
Ives: Symphony #2