Beard of the Week LXXXIII: Variations on America
This week's beard belongs to American composer Charles E. Ives (1874-1954). He's been a personal favorite ever since I tripped over some of his music a few decades ago.
It is hard to find a biography of Ives that does not use the phrases "iconoclastic" and "quintessentially American". (This nice one, also the source of the photo, from the Library of Congress uses "distinctly American"–and "iconoclastic"–just for a bit of variety.) I'm thinking that it could be the iconoclastic bit that attracted me to Ives; I admire the artistic fish that swim upriver.
Ives was born in Danbury, Connecticut. New Englanders take their Americanism very seriously, but without wearing it on their sleeves, and there's lots of Americanism and overtones of rugged individualsim in Ives' music. To describe it in words can make it sound superficial, gimmicky, or even corny, but it is none of those. Ives' music is profound, unique, and uniquely American.
Discussions of his musical heritage always point out two things: that his father, George, was a band leader who was fond of making acoustical experiments, famously of having two bands playing different tunes marching simultaneously down intersecting streets, just to see what it sounded like and to stretch the ears a bit; and that hymn tunes play a big role in Ives' music.
It's true about the hymn tunes–they pop up absolutely everywhere–but to think of his music as somehow "hymn-tune based" trivializes what's going on. His first job, at the age of 14, was that of church organist. It's much more that the musical landscape of Ives' life was populated with hymn tunes and so his musical stream of consciousness often finds them floating by, so he incorporates them into the fabric of his compositions. Here's how the LoC bio (linked above) puts it:
To hear the music of composer Charles Ives is to hear a unique voice in American music, and indeed, in Western music as a whole. His work is at once iconoclastic and closely tied to his musical heritage; in its conception and form, both staggeringly complex and immediately accessible; and in its musical language, both universal and distinctly American.
Ives's work embodies a distillation of the diverse stylistic features of the music of his time, from the traditions of Romanticism prevalent in European art music of the late nineteenth century to the simplicity of traditional American hymn tunes, often juxtaposed in unexpected and even experimental combinations.
It all sounds a bit over the top, but I don't find any of that an exaggeration.
Ives went to Yale and studied music there, but did not become a professional musician. After graduating from Yale in 1898, Ives moved to New York and eventually gained a position in the actuarial department of the Mutual Insurance Company. Curiously, he stopped composing about the time of the first world war. Musically he was largely ignored for decades with his music rarely gaining performance. His first two symphonies were not premiered until the early 50s, half a century after their composition.
I could go on and on about Ives, but this is a holiday, so let's celebrate with a Fourth of July recital!
Variations on "America"
I like the flashy and silly, too, and this is one of my guilty pleasures: Ives' 'Variations on "America" ' for Organ; that's "America", the tune that starts "My country tis of thee…". Ives wrote these variations in 1891, when he was 17. The piece is frequently heard in an arrangement for orchestra made by William Schuman, but I much prefer the piquancy of it performed on organ.
I read an essay about the variations that called them "cheeky". That's probably true, but I don't think they go as far as "mocking". Ives treats the theme seriously enough and does up a clever set of treatments, including a very flashy and noisy toccata for a finale — watch for the pedal fireworks.
When I was in college, our college organist played this once on a recital. He hated the piece so he chose the most outlandish registrations he could think of, and it really bought the piece to life. For the finale he literally pulled out all the stops including the Zimbelstern (a little mechanical, tinkly bell device), which he happily left on and tinkling away when he left the organ bench at the end. Brilliant!
In this performance we haveTom Trenny playing the organ at Trinity Church, New York City. The performance is about 7.5 minutes long. (Note for friends at Facebook: I don't think the YouTube embedded videos survive this translation to Facebook, so you might like to visit the original blog page to enjoy the recital.)
As a bonus treat, here is a video of Virgil Fox playing the variations. I don't care for his performance so much, but he is Virgil Fox, and his introduction to the piece is not to be missed.
General William Booth Enters into Heaven
General William Booth was the founder and first "general" of the Salvation Army. Given what we know about Ives, ponder for a minute on the question of how he might go about a musical depiction of the General at the pearly gates. There's hymn singing, marching, a Salvation Army band, and lots of being "washed in the blood of the lamb". It's an amazing concoction, almost like a 6-minute opera. It appeared in Ives' privately published 114 Songs,* but in this version (apparently by Ives), it's for baritone solo (Donnie Ray Albert), chorus (Dallas Symphony Chorus), and orchestra (Dallas Symphony), all directed by Andrew Davis.
I find it very evocative and very, very Ives.
String Quartet No. 1, 1st Movement, Fugue
The first string quartet is an early piece, composed c. 1900, but not premiered until 1957. (Two sets of notes about the quartet I enjoyed reading: one and the other.)
This is the first movement, a double fugue on two hymn tunes: "Missionary Hymn" (usually with the words "From Greenland's icy mountains….") and "Coronation" (often with words "All hail the power of Jesus' name…"). The former provides the main theme; the latter is heard later as a countersubject. Apparently the fugue (the entire quartet, actually) started life as service music for organ and strings, then was arranged into this quartet.
This particular fugue, which is unusually peaceful, non dissonant, and at first look uncharacteristically Ives, was reused later, orchestrated for a large orchestra, as the third movement of his Fourth Symphony.
Symphony No.4, 1st Movement, Prelude: Maestoso
Ives wrote his Fourth Symphony over a number of years from about 1910 to 1916 (see Wikipedia); it was not performed in its entirely in public until 1965, when Leopold Stowowski did that with the American Symphony Orchestra, which he had founded in 1962.
It is a massive work, scored for a very large orchestra. The second movement, the "comedy", is complex and forbidding and inscrutable and one can't really stop listening to it, either. There are layer upon layer upon layer of sound from which recognizable bits surface every now and then — it always makes me think of recognizable tunes churned up to the surface of a turbulent ocean and then pulled back under again. Perhaps it's Ives reconstruction of his father's "acoustical experiments". This movement is usually performed with two conductors just to keep it all sorted out.
However, it's the first movement that really turned me on originally to the Fourth Symphony. It is a setting with chorus, but no ordinary hymn-tune anthem, of "Watchman, Tell us of the Night"; the colors and mood and rhythmic irregularities are delicious and perplexing. This performance lasts just under 4 minutes.
As a bonus: an analysis / introduction from the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "Classical Companion" about Ives' Fourth Symphony.
Happy Fourth of July!
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* I found (here)this lovely quotation from Henry Cowell's Charles Ives and his Music (pp. 80-81):
The 114 Songs forms the most original, imaginative, and powerful body of vocal music that we have from any American, and the songs have provided the readiest path to Ives's musical thinking for most people. Many of them have a touching lyrical quality; some are angry, others satirical. The best of them are musically very daring, with vocal lines that are hard for the conventionally trained artist, accompaniments that are often frightfully difficult, and rhythmic and tonal relations between voice and piano which require real work to master. Even when the melodic line alone presents no special problem, in combination with the accompaniment it offers a real challenge to musicianship. Surmounting the difficulties of this music creates an intensity in the performer that approaches the composer's original exaltation and has brought audiences to their feet with enthusiasm and excitement. But the simplest and least characteristic of the songs are still the most often performed. Like Schoenberg, whose fame rests on musical usages that had not yet appeared in the early pieces ordinarily performed on concert programs, Ives has been represented, as a rule, by pieces that have little or nothing to do with the music that made his reputation.