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It’s really not too difficult to
like Charles Ives (1874-1954). American pioneer and visionary,
insurance salesman by day and composer on weekends, his bio (a
rather engaging one appears in The Great Composers by Harold
C. Schonberg) reads like the typical polymath who absorbed and
assimilated multifarious musical influences like a sponge, and who
very much did his own thing. So what if nobody performed his works?
Just too bad – it’s their loss. And what if he did not win
any prizes? “Prizes are for boys. I have grown up.” was a stance he
took.
As Fate would have it, his music is
among the most recorded of 20th century American
composers. And he did eventually get to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1947
for his Third Symphony, and predictably donated the prize
money to charity. Of his unusually diverse output, his Second
Piano Sonata has been more than well served. Imagine a 20th
century equivalent of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata - four
movements of some 50 minutes with the piano bruised and the pianist
drained - and one will get an idea of its scope.
The Concord Sonata is Ives’
vision of the spirit of transcendentalism, seen through a sleepy
little Massachusetts town that was once inhabited by giants of
America’s transcendental literary movement. David Henry Thoreau
penned his Walden from a hut built by a pond at the edge of the
town, while the Alcotts (including Louisa May of Little Women
fame) practised their Beethoven in a quaint cottage near the town
centre.
This is not a pretty Biedermeier-styled score
with ingratiating melodies and self-congratulatory climaxes, but
rather one of piano literature’s grittiest creations. True to form,
Ives dispenses with key signatures and bar lines altogether, and the
meter changes like the weather. Expect no concessions to aural
niceties (“Pretty sounds were for sissies,” Ives would pronounce to
that effect) or tonal centres (Schoenberg was proud to have found a
kindred spirit), and the only discernable snatches of melody are
dismembered quotes from popular American tunes tossed into a
seemingly haphazard patchwork. This aspect, most apparent in the
scherzo-like second movement Hawthorne, is in essence
Ives’ Americana – a melting pot of ideas, ideals, dreams and
nightmares; take it or leave it, and without a hint of apology.
Mention must also be made for the ever-hovering ghost of Beethoven;
the four-note Fate motif from his Fifth Symphony is regularly
quoted – from the outset and the ‘simple’ third movement, The
Alcotts.
 In the opening Emerson and
closing Thoreau movements, Ives includes obbligato
parts for the flute and viola (about two bars each). Their
appearance is surreptitious, an effect that is highly atmospheric
and lends a magical touch. All’s the pity that Steven Mayer, whose
phenomenal technique is every bit the equal to the score’s fearsome
demands, chooses the option to omit them. These bit parts can be
heard in the classic recording by Roberto Szidon (on Deutsche
Grammophon), Gilbert Kalish (Nonesuch), and the recently issued
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Warner Classics). The latter has no less than
Emmanuel Pahud and Tabea Zimmerman as his partners. There is also a
soft edge to this new Naxos recording; what is missing is that
challenging in-your-face quality that Szidon delivers so
emphatically and convincingly.
All’s not lost as the three fillers
are invaluable, all adding to the better understanding of
Concord.
The first of Four Transcriptions from Emerson provides the
framework for the Emerson first movement. The Celestial
Railroad, based on a phantasmagorical parable of Hawthorne, has
the same ghostly quality as the
Hawthorne
second movement, and is the basis of
the second movement of Ives’ magnum opus - his Fourth
Symphony. This 9-minute tone poem for piano picks up steam
inexorably before its rousing march just vanishes into the thin air.
Mayer, whose earlier recordings include Liszt, Thalberg and Art
Tatum, gets to the root of Ivesian humour, as in the anarchic
Varied Air and Variations. This is an acquired taste, to be
certain.
The four Violin Sonatas are
much less often recorded, and they fit nicely on a well-filled disc.
These are more traditional three-movement creations than the
Piano Sonatas, are easier on the ear, and have their fair share
of quoted, borrowed and “stolen” popular music.
The brief Fourth Sonata is
the best known and its programmatic title “Children’s Day at the
Camp Meeting” is explicit. Memories of songs sung at Sunday
school and revival meetings return to flood the score, nowhere
better illustrated in the second movement when the hymn Jesus
Loves Me is meditated upon. The similarly inspired Second
Sonata is also programmatic; its movements are titled Autumn,
In the Barn and The Revival. The second movement’s
barn dance is pure joy with snatches of Turkey in the Straw,
the jig Sailor’s Hornpipe and bluegrass fiddling all mixed up
in the hay.
The First and Third
Sonatas are non-programmatic and show a grasp of the sonata form
albeit with regular departures and the usual discords and bag of
assorted tricks. “It is awful. It is not music. Are my ears wrong?”
pronounced a violinist from the old school on attempting to play the
First Sonata. Again, popular melodies provide the movements
with their thematic material; Watchman, Tell Us of the Night,
a song that appears in the Fourth Symphony dominates the
finale of the First Sonata while familiar hymn Every Hour
I Need Thee closes the Third Sonata
For an experience quite unlike that
of Beethoven violin sonatas, these are worth more than a listen,
especially when as keenly and idiomatically advocated by the Texan
duo of Curt Thompson and Rodney Waters. Despite the “wrong-note”
philosophy espoused by Ives’ musical palette, little sounds out of
place here given Thompson’s immaculate intonation and very assured
delivery. There is little to be desired given Naxos’ low, low asking
price that renders full-priced competition almost supercilious.
Tou Liang discovered Ives when he found a
Eugene Ormandy LP recording of Symphony No.2 while rummaging
through the cut-out bin at Tang’s Department Store during his
schooldays. His Ives-mania was later fulfilled with a visit to
Concord, Massachusetts (an hour northwest of Boston) in 1985.
In Singapore, Naxos CDs may be bought most cheaply from Sing Music
at #02-75 Lucky Plaza . Call Doris for help at (+65)62358960. They
also take multiple orders and can supply Hyperion and many other
small labels. 10% discount if you mention The Flying Inkpot.
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