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autoharp
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« on: 18:03:21, 05-09-2007 » |
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Not too much mention of Ives over the last few months. Is he not one of the masters of the 20th century ? From a composer's point of view, does he not make anything seem possible ?
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richard barrett
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« Reply #1 on: 19:14:29, 05-09-2007 » |
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Not too much mention of Ives over the last few months. Is he not one of the masters of the 20th century ? From a composer's point of view, does he not make anything seem possible ?
There are only a couple of pieces by Ives that I know at all well and like a lot - the Three Quartertone Piece for two pianos and The Unanswered Question principally - but on the whole I think of him as someone who opened a lot of doors and then didn't really bother to go through them. That probably says more about me than it does about Ives. Also I don't really like all those hymn tunes. I do however remember an electrifying performance of the Second Sonata by Yvar Mikhashoff at the 1988 (?) Huddersfield Festival - Yvar's score was overwritten to the point of near-illegibility and replete with hundreds of flaps bearing alternatives to this or that bar, making it an utterly nerve-wracking experience for the page-turner... (me) |
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xyzzzz__
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« Reply #2 on: 19:44:14, 05-09-2007 » |
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Search: Ives' "Universe Symphony" (Johnny Reinhard).
I've heard little else but I'd say that anything is possible after that one.
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Evan Johnson
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« Reply #3 on: 20:49:24, 05-09-2007 » |
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[...] but on the whole I think of him as someone who opened a lot of doors and then didn't really bother to go through them. That probably says more about me than it does about Ives.
Well, if it's about you, then it's about me too, and that's the best description I've ever seen of precisely what I think of Ives as well. Although you could say the same of others of that era - Cowell springs to mind, not to mention Busoni, Antheil... something in the water. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #4 on: 20:53:25, 05-09-2007 » |
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Well, if it's about you, then it's about me too, and that's the best description I've ever seen of precisely what I think of Ives as well. Hmm, that's interesting! Me too, but I've never heard anyone else sound like they agreed before so I've always kept quiet and assumed it's all down to my own failure to have listened hard enough yet (which may still be the case, of course) ... |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Bryn
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« Reply #5 on: 20:54:02, 05-09-2007 » |
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Search: Ives' "Universe Symphony" (Johnny Reinhard).
I've heard little else but I'd say that anything is possible after that one.
Yes, I've heard a recording of the first performance and also have the multitracked CD version. It seems more convincing than Larry Austin's version of the work, but still doeds not really have the Ives 'ring' to it, as far as my ears are concerned. Well worth hearing though. Of course, autoharp is just waiting for someone to mention 'the Blood", and "Hearst".  |
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« Last Edit: 21:02:46, 05-09-2007 by Bryn »
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #6 on: 21:01:01, 05-09-2007 » |
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And yet once the door is open, any dope can walk through it. I: Ives fan.  Welsh Cadaver Rides! ...his middle name's edward, hence... best I could do... |
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pim_derks
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« Reply #7 on: 21:42:45, 05-09-2007 » |
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I: Ives fan. Me too!  I heard many pieces of Ives before I heard a lot of Schoenberg's and Stravinsky's music. To me, the music of Ives sounded more accessible than that of Schoenberg and his music was also more surprising than that of Stravinsky. |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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Colin Holter
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« Reply #8 on: 00:00:25, 06-09-2007 » |
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I'm a true Ives believer. Like RB, I enjoy the quarter-tone piano pieces and Unanswered Question, but for my money, his songs and piano sonatas are where it's at. "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" and "The Cage," to name two of his most famous, are personal favorites. (I don't perform much anymore and haven't done any serious singing in years, but I've never felt as powerful, as a performer, as when I did "General William Booth." If you don't know it, go listen to it right now.) The Concord Sonata requires an exceptional performance to make an exceptional impression, probably, but under optimal conditions I think it's unbelievable. The First Sonata is basically about being a frat boy at Yale, a species of individual on whom Evan might be able to shed some light, but somehow it's still quite profound.
Ives is on an entirely different plane of genius than Cowell, Antheil, etc. in my opinion.
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« Last Edit: 00:03:59, 06-09-2007 by Colin Holter »
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smittims
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« Reply #9 on: 08:46:00, 06-09-2007 » |
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I remember when Ives' Music underwent the enthusiastic discovery in Britain that seems to happen to some previously neglected composers (e.g. Monteverdi and Mahler).
I felt that some of the enthusiasts were misunderstanding him as a completely self taught hillbilly, and portraying him as a happy-go-lucky anarchic iconoclast. I think this was one side of him when he was younger,but it was always a sort of pose,stemming from the fact that where he came from, a serious interest in music was 'cissy'.
For me Ives was always a very professional composer,who knew exactly what he wanted . I was saddened to see the ignorant post on the BBC board about his third Symphony
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #10 on: 11:13:53, 06-09-2007 » |
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but for my money, his songs and piano sonatas are where it's at. "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" and "The Cage," to name two of his most famous, are personal favorites.
Completely agreed - a couple of my own favourite Ives songs are "The Housatonic at Stockbridge", "The Circus Band", and the rather less-known "The Greatest Man".  "Wheeere iiiiis the Lady all in pink?
Last year she winked at me, I think... |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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autoharp
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« Reply #11 on: 13:20:16, 06-09-2007 » |
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on the whole I think of him as someone who opened a lot of doors and then didn't really bother to go through them. (me)
I'm not sure if I understand this phrase that others are agreeing with. It strikes that Ives opened many doors - and indeed went through them. Unlike others, he didn't spend his life repeatedly going through the same door. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #12 on: 18:19:38, 06-09-2007 » |
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Since I was guilty of that formulation, maybe I should say a few more words about what I meant. Taking the Quartertone Pieces and The Unanswered Question as two examples, each one in its different way opens a "door" to unprecedented possibilities, in the field of harmony and structure respectively (to name only these), which he then didn't "follow through" in other works as far as I know. Many of the "experimental" pieces by Ives (which for me are the most interesting) do this same thing. Which I find a little frustrating: given that he had pretty much worked out a way of dealing with quartertone harmony in the Three Pieces, he then didn't write anything else with quartertones which would have made further explorations from that starting point. As I said, the fact that I have a problem with this way of doing things says more about me than it does about Ives.
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autoharp
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« Reply #13 on: 19:06:08, 06-09-2007 » |
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Ives wrote an essay entitled Some "quarter-tone" impressions which is pretty informative on harmony. Pity Haba didn't learn from it. I've not read anything by Vishnegradsky, but, on the strength of some of his 2-piano music, I'd guess that he came to some similar conclusions. Ives did occasionally use quarter-tones elsewhere, but never throughout a whole piece - his 3 pieces were written pretty late on.
Cowell admitted that he had more ideas than he could manage to write pieces for - Ives seems not a dissimilar case.
I'm slightly puzzled by your choice of The unanswered question: although a particularly stark example of its type, do you not find the musical ideas explored (albeit differently) elsewhere ?
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richard barrett
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« Reply #14 on: 19:11:43, 06-09-2007 » |
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I'm slightly puzzled by your choice of The unanswered question: although a particularly stark example of its type, do you not find the musical ideas explored (albeit differently) elsewhere ?
If he wrote other pieces which inhabit that region, I don't think I've heard them. |
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