CDs 1 and 2 
"This is very much - though not exclusively - Tilson Thomas's Ives and predominantly from the 1980s. The exceptions include a single straggler conducted by Stokowski (the Fugue movement from symphony 4) though his name is not mentioned in the booklet listing. In any event it’s the version in which Jose Serebrier collaborated as assistant. There’s also Stokie's Robert Browning Overture and Ormandy's America Variations.
 
MTT directs orchestras from Chicago, the Concertgebouw and San Francisco. the recordings sound a lot better being more recent than those for Bernstein, Barber and Copland.
 
The Second Symphony and the Variations on America have solid Brahmsian ‘bottom’ to them even if the Second does end with American brashness and that innovative iconoclastic discord.
 
MTT’s From Steeple and Mountains does justice to the inventive Ives who pushes magically at the boundaries of the spidery decay of tonality. The piece has some of the mystique of the trumpet solos in Schmidt's Fourth Symphony yet with a wonderful spareness. The Browning Overture is out there at the edge as well with a dissonant devilry. The webby canvas returns in the subtleties of the Holiday Symphony’s Decoration Day which sound rather lichen-hung as if having escaped from the dank worlds created by Frank Bridge in the 1920s.
 
Two ballads sung by Thomas Hampson with MTT at the piano show how predictive Ives was of the wit of Bernstein. In Things our Father Taught Us the drawing-room melts away as modernity’s refractory imagination infiltrates the room.
 
The Circus Band is brazen and pastiche. General William Booth enters Heaven is a phantasmagoria which bawls with tin tabernacle wildness. Ives cuts this already heady mixture with gospel hymn cross-currents. The challenge thrown down by the choir in Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb is taken up in the long string sampler hymnals of the Fugue from the Fourth Symphony.
 
CD 3
The Third Symphony is smoothly Brahmsian yet with unusual touches. The Children's Day chatter is full of earnestly playful Allegro power. It is an affectionate portrait that ends in a impressionistic fragile mist - infinitely touching and uncertain of itself. Those bells might well have inspired Hovhaness who was a close co-worker of Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison; the latter revived the Third Symphony in 1947 winning for the work a Pulitzer Prize.
 
Three Places in New England is another Frank Bridge-style confection - clammy, lichen-draped and Gothic-romantic. There are times when you could morph this score into Bridge's There is a Willow. The orchestral piano chips in part way through The St Gaudens across the sweetest tender string writing. Putnam’s Camp is full of good-hearted discord and moonlit Pierrot play. The famous Housatonic at Stockbridge is in part Delian as in Appalachia with the gently twinkling discord of the piano across the choir which is only heard in this movement. It ends, not in honeyed reaffirmation, but in a boiling discord.
 
In The Unanswered Question the tension is superbly sustained by MTT and the Chicagoans. It ends with flittering and discordant birdsong and that silkily sighing attenuated violin sound here redolent of the Tallis Fantasia. The Scriabin-like solo trumpet of Adolph Herseth is part enigmatic and part elegiac as in the Schmidt Fourth Symphony.
 
We end with Central Park in the Dark which takes us into much the same world as The Unanswered Question. There’s an evolutionary up-welling rising to a jazzily discordant convulsion. All power dissipated, the music sinks into an uneasy free-floating dimension. It’s incredibly imaginative and not at all difficult to take on board."

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Among musicians closely associated with Charles Ives and his music, John Kirkpatrick possessed an innate affinity for the composer’s rough and tumble sound world that bordered on clairvoyance. A brilliant and adventurous pianist, Kirkpatrick (1905-1991) gave the complete public premiere of Ives’ “Concord” Sonata in 1938, followed six years later by its first recording. Kirkpatrick remade the work in stereo for Columbia Masterworks in 1968, and its first CD release here sounds better than ever.

The lean, slightly astringent sonority I remember from my well-worn LP copy gains color and tonal heft via digital remastering, with no compromise in regard to the composer’s considerable dynamic range. Kirkpatrick shapes the first two movements’ gnarly, restless keyboard writing with bracing energy and a near-infallible sense of the music’s quirky ebb and flow. The dissonant outbursts, lyrical asides, and wacky popular song quotations emerge with such idiomatic rightness and effortless transitions that it almost seems as if Kirkpatrick is making up the sonata on the spot. He is not, of course, but astute listeners will notice small textual variants based on source material that appeared only after the composer’s death, and the absence of the optional viola and flute parts.

A selection of Ives’ own private piano recordings fills out the disc, and features the composer improvising variants and new material based on the Emerson and Hawthorne movements, along with a straighter yet no less fervent reading of the complete Alcotts movement. While it’s instructive to sample Ives’ “Concord”-based piano recordings as an adjunct to Kirkpatrick’s performance, you also can find them in CRI/New World’s collection of the complete recordings of Ives at the piano. Had I produced this reissue, I would have gone so far as to add Kirkpatrick’s earlier and even more incisive 1945 “Concord”, together with the never-before-reissued “In the Inn” from the First Sonata that filled out Side 10 of the original five-disc 78 rpm album. Still, Sony/BMG and Arkivmusic.com deserve thanks for restoring Kirkpatrick’s stereo “Concord”, a performance that fully deserves its iconic reputation.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

These classic recordings of the Ives Quartets, as far as I know, have not been issued on CD before now. In the 1960s the Juilliard Quartet had few rivals in this repertoire and their performances set standards for those to come. I should note here that Raphael Hillyer, the original violist with the quartet, died very recently at the ripe age of 96. These recordings of the Ives quartets have not lost any of their luster. They are marvelous performances in excellent sound.

The String Quartet No. 1 was the composer’s first major work. Although he wrote it as early as 1896, it did not receive its first public performance until 1957, three years after Ives’ death. This is listener-friendly Ives, filled with snatches of hymns and other familiar tunes and not knotty as his later works, including the String Quartet No. 2, were to become. Although it is unmistakably Ives, it also sounds at times like Brahms and Dvo?ák. The work’s fugal first movement has an interesting history. Apparently Ives decided to detach it from the quartet and use it as the third movement of his Symphony No. 4, where it remains today. However, when the quartet was first published in1961 the first movement returned to its proper place. The quartet has been performed in this four-movement form ever since. According to David Johnson, who wrote the original liner notes, Ives gave the four movements of the quartet, often subtitled, “A Revival Service,” the following “churchly titles”: Fugue,Prelude,Offertory and Postlude. The printed score, though, eliminates these and gives only the tempo markings.

The Quartet No. 2 shows an entirely different side of Charles Ives. Whereas the earlier work was highly melodic and Romantic, the Second Quartet is more aggressively modern-dissonant and largely atonal. It also contains snatches of songs, such as Dixie and Columbia the Gem of the Ocean, and no little humor. Near the end of the second movement, the quartet stops to tune up before closing with two crashing chords. At one point in this movement there is a brief quotation from the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Ives retained titles for the three movements: I-Discussions (Andante moderato), II-Arguments (Allegro con spirito), and III-The Call of the Mountains (Adagio). The quartet is also programmatic. Ives wrote the following after the work’s title: “…four men-who converse, discuss, argue, fight, shake hands, shut up-then walk up to the mountain side to view the firmament!”

These being two of Ives’ most important chamber works, it is strange that they have not been recorded more often-especially compared to the songs and symphonies. Of more modern recordings, the one that most closely approaches the benchmark the Juilliard has provided is that by what many consider today’s leading American quartet, the Emersons. Their recording on DG also contains a very brief Scherzo, called “Holding Your Own,” that Ives composed in 1903-04, and Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Op. 11 containing the original version of his famous Adagio. Those performances are perfectly fine as a whole, even if they do not quite possess the dramatic edge or the nuances of the Juilliard. The main advantage of the Emerson disc is that it contains over an hour of music very well played and recorded. That said, the re-mastering for CD of the Juilliard recording is very successful and the sound is as good as that for the Emerson. I have not heard the accounts by the Blair Quartet on Naxos, but they have received positive reviews as well, including Dominy Clements' review on this website. You pays your money and takes your choice! The notes for the Juilliard CD are from the original LP and the presentation is first class in every way.

-- Leslie Wright, MusicWeb International

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are several other fine recordings of these two remarkable quartets--not nearly as many as there should be--and they all include additional works that may entice some listeners to choose their fuller programs over this 49-minute recital. But that would be a mistake, for these performances by the Juilliard Quartet are exceptional in their refinement and detail, their vibrant ensemble character, and, especially in the First quartet, their respectful attention to Ives' thematic material, never artificially punching up the spontaneous hymn-tune bits nor overworking the more integrated developmental passages.

The very articulate playing allows unusual but essential clarity among the four parts, and the group's Ivesian sensibility appreciates the background programmatic concept of "A Revival Service" (First quartet) and the underlying "story" of the Second quartet's four men "who converse, discuss, argue, fight, shake hands, shut up--then walk up the mountainside to view the firmament!", but always celebrates each work's most compelling musical attributes.

Although the First quartet was written in 1896, not untypically for Ives' music its premiere wasn't until many decades later--in 1957. The Juilliard's recording followed only nine years after, in 1966--the Second quartet was recorded the following year. But there's a dynamism and freshness in the playing--complemented by sound that's just slightly dry enough to give the strings a nice vibrant edge--that surpasses all subsequent readings on disc.

The Emerson Quartet renditions (DG) are not only often faster, but the interpretations have an overtly academic character in the all-too-conspicuous articulation and phrasing. The Lydian Quartet's (Centaur) fine enough performances are dulled just a bit by the acoustic; the Blair Quartet's (Naxos) readings are very good, the best of the modern recordings of these two unique--and extremely different quartets. But whether you already have or eventually want more than one version, the Juilliard's Ives should not be missed.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Ives’ Sets for Chamber Orchestra are largely based on his songs, and display a panoply of style and technique. Set 9 includes The Unanswered Question in its original form, and this recording contains world premiere recordings of new realisations and editions, as well as being the first recording of the complete edition of the Sets. The three Orchestral Sets conducted by James Sinclair can be heard on 8.559370.

REVIEW:

The Sets for Chamber Orchestra by Charles Ives (1874–1954) are, in a sense, songs without words, based on songs whose texts are printed in the booklet. Although some sets do not have descriptive titles as others do (Three Poets and human Nature, From the Side Hill, Water Colors) most parts of the sets do have a name that describes their character. Set 9 includes The Unanswered Question in its original form.

For this recording, James Sinclair, Kenneth Singleton, and David Porter have thoroughly revised the scores and weeded out errors.

The interpretations are refined, clearly structured, and expressive. Unlike other conductors, Sinclair does not play to the fullest the aggressiveness of the compositions, but strives for a fine portrayal of the grotesque, the ironic, and the nostalgic.

-- Pizzicato (Norbert Tischer)

This is a splendid set of Ives classics with two novelties. It says something forhis stature these days that this is the fifth recording of Three Places in New England in the current British catalogue. The opening march is slightly disappointing in Slatkin's over measured treatment, but there are plenty of fireworks (literally, since it depicts a Fourth of July outing) in ''Putnam's Camp'' and real intensity in the sound of hymn-singing across the river which is built into ''The Housatonic at Stockbridge''.

It is good to have The Unanswered Question and Central Park in the Dark where they belong—together. The separate layers of activity in both pieces, with the strings static and the other instrumental textures dynamically changing, create the quintessential Ives experience in the simplest form. The spacing is carefully engineered in this recording and the detail at all levels is clear.

I have compared the Tilson Thomas recording of the Third Symphony unfavourably with that by Sir Neville Marriner. Slatkin, in this third recording in the British catalogue, now has the edge on both of them, with an affectionate treatment of this hymn-saturated score. Tilson Thomas used a new edition. I think Slatkin does too, and there are extras in the strings at the end of the second movement which I have never heard before.

The two novelties are both early, from the 1890s. The March is all infectious razzle-dazzle and the Fugue in four keys is experimental for its period but smoothly contrived and haunting in its ending. They complete a well planned and competitive Ives release.

-- Peter Dickinson, Gramophone [4/1993]

Recorded in: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall 8 & 9 November 1991 (Symphony No. 1) 29 April & 1 May 1995 (Symphony No. 2) Producer(s) Ralph Couzens (Executive) Charles Greenwell (Recording) Leslie B. Dunner (Associate) Sound Engineer(s) Dan Dene Robert Shafer

This well-filled disc contains excellent performances of some of Ives most popular and significant works. It’s easy to understand why the “Holidays” Symphony has enjoyed greater success as four individual tone poems. With the exception of Thanksgiving, the three other movements (as well as Central Park in the Dark and other Ives pieces) all share the same basic form. They start with a dissonant, slow passage scored mostly for strings, then there’s a lively middle section based on popular dance, march, and hymn tunes. This quickly rises to a chaotic climax and then the opening music returns in a brief coda.

Andrew Davis deserves credit for differentiating the first three movements in a way that prevents monotony–a function of flowing tempos and carefully delineated string textures–while still letting Ives’ cacophony sound aptly cacophonous. Only the unnamed chorus at the end of Thanksgiving could have enjoyed greater prominence, but it’s no big deal. For all we know the singers might be members of the orchestra, which is just fine. The tune, “Duke Street” is still used in the New Haven Protestant churches. I know because when I was in high school in New Haven we sang it there, although not at Thanksgiving.

This performance of Three Places in New England is also first rate, with a rambunctious middle movement and a particularly poetic account of The Housatonic at Stockbridge. The Unanswered Question is basically unkillable (although it has been done), although I’m not sure why it’s separated from its companion piece, Central Park in the Dark, by the Three Places. That was gratuitous, but it hardly matters and you can always play the music in any order you choose. This being Ives, it hardly matters. Fine sonics round out a very desirable release.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

James Sinclair is always an excellent guide to this music, even through Ives' most complex textural thickets. The Fourth of July has real celebratory fervor and a sense of fun, while the climax of Thanksgiving, so often a muddle, here achieves real transcendence, with the choir perfectly integrated into the ensemble. I have to confess that I love this piece particularly, even though it's often considered the weakest part of what would later become the "Holidays" Symphony. I attended Hopkins Grammar in New Haven, as did Ives, and every Christmas the Glee Club gave a concert on the New Haven green at Trinity Church, right next to Center Church at which Ives served as organist. One of the hymns we often sang was "Duke Street", which forms the climax of Thanksgiving. So it has personal resonance, and it's also a great tune.

For this reason, and because of the similarities in tone and structure among the other three movements, I see no reason why the movements of "Holidays" should not be enjoyed separately, as they are presented here (the first, Washington's Birthday, already has been released). Interspersed between the better-known works are some real novelties. First, The General Slocum, a brief portrait of a tragic shipwreck, followed by two student works that sound totally Romantic, and completely unlike Ives: the Overture in G minor, and the Postlude in F. Finally, the Yale-Princeton Football Game, a two-minute riot of a piece that will make any fan of (American) football smile.

As already suggested, Sinclair's conducting gets everything right: tempos, textures, balances, and colors. He allows Ives' boisterous high spirits to emerge naturally, effortlessly, and where necessary, raucously. The Malmö orchestra plays all of this music with complete confidence, and the sonics are unaffectedly crisp and clean. An essential release for Ives fans.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

Charles Ives wrote almost two hundred songs. Although his reputation rests on orchestral, chamber and piano music, it is Ives's songs that represent the heart of his creative thinking. The expressive variety encountered is accordingly vast: indeed, the gradual evolution of Ives's songwriting is analogous to the wider evolution of American music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This new edition includes all the songs that Ives completed. The alphabetic approach ensures that each volume (of which this disc is the fourth of six) contains a representative cross-section.

The songs of the American composer Charles Ives (1874 - 1954) have been well-served on CD, but they have never before been recorded in their entirety on a budget-priced label or arranged, for recording purposes, in alphabetical order. The American Classics series of the budget Naxos label is in the midst of doing both. This CD is the third of a complete recording of the Ives songs arranged, quixotically, in alphabetical order. The performers are a group of young musicians affiliated with the Yale University School of Music. They offer readings of Ives as varied, idiosyncratic, and unpredictable as the songs themselves. In 1922, Ives gathered 114 of his songs, arranged them in reverse chronological order, added comments, and self-published them in a book called simply "114 songs". All told, Ives composed about 200 songs. The songs dating from his early years frequently draw heavily upon German lieder, parlor music, or hymns. The songs of Ives's maturity are deeply complex, varied, and musically adventurous. Throughout his life, Ives freely shifted musical material between his songs and his other compositions. From the beginning to the end of his career as a composer, Ives drew heavily on other music, incorporating many quotations from both classical and popular sources.

When, in 1922, Charles Ives published a volume entitled 114 Songs, he was indirectly drawing attention to the fact that the genre had played a central part in his output. 85 years on and, for all that his wider reputation may now rest on his orchestral, chamber and piano music, songs represent the heart of his creative thinking. Nor was that initial volume comprehensive; Ives having written almost 200 songs, of which this present edition includes all those he completed. The expressive variety encountered is accordingly vast: indeed, the gradual evolution of Ives's songwriting, from those drawing overtly on the Austro-German Lieder and English parlor-song traditions to ones that evince anarchic humor as keenly as others do a profound vision, is analogous to the evolution of American music over the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Although it would be possible to collate Ives's songs according to type, the alphabetic approach adopted by this edition ensures each volume (of which this is the sixth and last) contains a representative cross section of his achievement. A wide range of poets is set (Ives could be highly interventionist when it suited his purpose), including (mainly early) German settings as well as forays into French and Italian writers. Moreover, the temporal distance (1887-1926) traversed by the songs is as little compared to their stylistic diversity or their emotional range. The extent to which Ives reworked songs throughout his career is considerable, whether substituting a text or reworking the actual music. To this end, songs with a musical or textual connection are cross linked accordingly (i.e. in brackets at the end of the relevant paragraph). The setting of Rudyard Kipling's Tarrant Moss (1902) uses just two verses, treated in a peremptory fashion as if to suggest that the text was merely the nearest one to hand (see also Volume 5, track 27, Naxos 8.559273). Set to an anonymous text, There is a Certain Garden (1897) has a tripping and irregular piano part against which the vocal line unfolds a little awkwardly, though the charm of the song is undoubted. A revision of an earlier German song, now to Ives's own text, There is a Lane (1902) is a brief but winsome setting; the fond nostalgia of it's vocal line underscored by the piano (see also below, track 27). A late addition to his song canon, They are There! (1942) was Ives's contribution to the American war effort; setting his own (updated) text with a conviction aptly summed up by the subtitle 'Fighting for the People's New Free World'. It can be performed (as here) by unison voices, and with a lively ad lib instrumental part. Ives left a memorable, breathlessly enthusiastic recording.

This second volume of the series features 26 Ives's songs beginning alphabetically with "December" (1913) and concluding with "Grass" (1896). The performers include 14 singers, four pianists, and an organist. The organ appears on chronologically the earliest song on this CD, the hymn- like "Far From My Heav'nly Home" (1893). Ives's early and late, traditional and revolutionary are each represented. The highlight of this CD is Ives's 1914 setting of Vachel Lindsay's "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" a poem in it's character and enthusiasm made for Ives. Lindsay's poem and Ives's song capture the spirit of the founder of the Salvation Army as he ascends into heaven accompanied by the poor, the lost and the damned that Booth has brought to salvation. "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" the songs asks. In it's raw liveliness, enthusiasm, changes of mood, and transcendentalism, this song is one of Ives's greatest efforts in the form. The bass David Pittsinger gives a convincing performance accompanied by pianist Douglas Dickson.

When, in 1922, Charles Ives published a volume entitled 114 Songs, he was indirectly drawing attention to the fact that the genre played a central part in his output. 85 years on and, for all that his wider reputation may rest on orchestral, chamber and piano music, songs represent the heart of his creative thinking. Nor was that initial volume comprehensive; Ives having written nearly 200 songs, of which this edition includes all those he completed. The expressive variety is vast: indeed, the gradual evolution of Ives's songwriting, from those drawing on Austro-German Lieder and English parlor-song traditions to ones that evince anarchic humor as keenly as others do profound vision, is analogous to the evolution of American music over the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Although it would be possible to collate Ives's songs according to type, the alphabetic approach adopted by this edition ensures each volume (of which this disc is the fifth) contains a representative cross-section of his achievement. A wide range of poets is set, including a number of (mainly early) German settings as well as forays into French and Italian writers. The temporal distance (1887-1926) traversed by these songs is as little compared to their stylistic diversity or their emotional range.

The solo piano music of Ives represents an extraordinary achievement. Experimental is a word often associated with it. But experimental in what sense? Certainly he was exploring a wholly unique and personal style. Ives' music is by turns, exploratory, powerful, sensitive and transcendental always wholly consistent within it's own, sometimes highly unusual terms. These qualities are there in abundance in his two crowning achievements the first and second sonatas. The studies and others orbit round these like planets to twin suns. VOTED GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE TOP CHOICE 2012 (for the Concord Sonata)

For this Volume 1 of the songs of Charles Ives (the series will include all of the songs he completed), Naxos employed the services of no less than 13 singers, a potentially risky decision that happily turns out very well. All of the soloists, who represent all voice-parts (including countertenor in two selections), are first-rate singers, many quite young with blooming opera careers, each with a clear and compelling competence in how to sing songs. And these aren't just any songs, but some of the most fascinating, engaging, joyful, humorous, nostalgic, sentimental, artfully written songs in the repertoire.

The programming scheme is to present the songs alphabetically--not only is this handy if you want to find a particular song, but it also happens to create a very satisfying recital with an entertaining mix of styles, texts, and themes. This volume begins perfectly with "1, 2, 3" and ends (also appropriately!) with "Cradle Song", and in between we get such gems as "Aeschylus and Sophocles" (1922), "At Sea" (1921), "At the River" (1916), "Autumn" (1907), "The Cage" (1906), "The Camp Meeting" (1912), "Charlie Rutlage" (1920), "The Circus Band" (1894), and the lovely parlor-songs "Because of You" (1898) and "Because Thou Art" (1901).

Some singers are better than others at articulating the words--particularly important here since the texts are provided only online--and naturally, with this variety of voices, timbres, and techniques, some will appeal more than others to a given listener. For instance, I found Lielle Berman just a bit too "church-soprano-ish" in "The Collection", likewise baritone Patrick Carfizzi's southern accent for "Charlie Rutlage" is somewhat forced and inauthentic, and while it's well sung, to me, countertenor Ian Howell's "A Christmas Carol" is just too precious for its own good. But these are minor, personal quibbles in what overall is an extraordinarily satisfying, consummately entertaining, and consistently thoughtful collaboration that's always respectful of both the serious and humorous, the simple and the complex, the overtly melodious and abstract aspects of these often challenging songs.

Highlights are many, but include all four of bass David Pittsinger's songs, mezzo Leah Wool's "Ann Street", tenor Kenneth Tarver's "At Parting", baritone Robert Gardner's "The Cage" and "The Circus Band", soprano Sara Jakubiak's "Abide with Me" and "At the River"--and I could go on. You might think that listening to 29 Ives songs at one sitting would be a bit much, but thanks to these terrific singers, their fine accompanists, and to Ives' wildly, wonderfully varied, expert songwriting, it's just a pure pleasure--and you'll even find yourself smiling many times throughout.

There have been several excellent, highly recommended Ives song compilations issued on disc, including a complete edition from the early-1990s on Albany, a single-disc program on Decca (type Q3671 in Search Reviews), and two first-rate collections (61 songs all together) from Gerald Finley on Hyperion (for reviews, type Q9249 and Q11530), and this one promises to join them as an essential addition to every Ives and American song listening library. On to Volume 2!

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Eugene Ormandy's peerless Ives First Symphony, a singular classic in which the conductor employs all the resources of his fabulous orchestra, comes newly packaged in Sony's latest re-launch of its highly successful budget-priced Essential Classics series. The famous Philadelphia strings make a wonderfully sumptuous sound (particularly as they flesh out the Adagio molto's beauteous melodies), the winds' pointed and colorful playing enlivens the scherzo, while the brass section's signature timbre rings regally at the close of the first and last movements. Ormandy brings to this music the same level of concentration and care he would a Tchaikovsky symphony, conducting with an authority unmatched on other, later recordings.


Zubin Mehta conducts with similar enthusiasm, but his Los Angeles recording is spoiled by disfiguring cuts in the finale, and despite heftily sonorous playing from the Chicago Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas' earnest reading sounds surprisingly stiff after Ormandy's free-flowing, almost impetuous rendition. Ormandy further earns his Ives stripes (and proves the lie to the claim that he was a bland interpreter) with his intense and atmospheric reading of Three Places in New England. Rounding out the program is a bracing performance of the Robert Browning Overture by a very animated Leopold Stokowski, stunningly played by the American Symphony. The remastered sound for the Philadelphia sessions is pleasingly warm and full for its period (late 1950s), while the Stokowski recording is less open and a bit hard-edged. [3/6/2002]
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Charles Ives’s ‘Concord Sonata’ is often described as one of the greatest of American piano works. Published in 1920, at the composer’s own expense, it contains radical experiments in harmony and rhythm and would have to wait until 1939 for its first public performance. In the course of its four movements, Ives depicts some of the famous inhabitants of the small town of Concord in Massachusetts, a centre of the mid-19th century transcendentalism movement. Luminaries of the movement such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are alluded to in various ways in music that includes references to Beethoven, religious and patriotic hymns and circus marches, as well as brief ‘guest appearances’ by a viola and a flute. Lasting 47 minutes on the present recording, it is a massive work of a staggering complexity, and a true challenge for any performer – a challenge more than readily accepted by the young Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen, who has previously recorded Ligeti’s piano concerto for BIS.

For the opening work on the disc, the much shorter Violin Sonata No.4, Ahonen is joined by his compatriot, the celebrated violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Composed during the same period as the Concord Sonata, this piece also has an extra-musical background, namely the composer’s memories as a child of the so-called camp meetings held during the Christian revivalism of the late 19th century.

The Concord Sonata by Charles Ives is without doubt the most iconic American piano sonata. Its epic length (appr. 50 minutes), its extreme technical difficulties and its highly unusual form and writing make it one of the greatest challenges for any performing pianist. Any new recording of it is an event. The sonata’s 4 movements represent figures associated with the Transcendentalism movement: Ralph Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson and Louisa Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. The piece demonstrates Ives' experimental tendencies: much of it is written without barlines, the harmonies are advanced, and in the second movement there is a cluster chord created by depressing the piano's keys with a piece of wood. The piece also amply demonstrates Ives' fondness for musical quotation (especially Beethoven’s 5th). Pianist Thomas Hell is widely recognised as a specialist of 20th century piano repertoire. He recorded works by Carter, Schoenberg, Dallapiccola, Boulez and the complete Etudes by Ligeti. “A clear frontrunner.” - Classicstoday.com

A momentous release, as Morlot and the Seattle Symphony follow their acclaimed recording of Ives’ Symphony No. 2 with the next installment that includes four of the composer’s greatest works. The rarely recorded Symphony No. 4 is a haunting summation of American musical styles, and one of the masterpieces of American music. It receives here a live performance of staggering authority and eloquence that brings Ives’ multi-layered sonic canvas to new life. Recorded alongside Symphony No. 3 and Ives’ two most beloved short orchestral works, this release is engineered to audiophile standards and set to be an authoritative voice among recordings of Ives’ discography.

REVIEW:

These live performances are outstanding, and the coupling gives you what is basically “the essential Ives” orchestral music. The Fourth Symphony is a tricky piece, particularly in its second and fourth movements, whose chaotic climaxes need to ride that border between riotous, tuneful abundance and mere noise. Morlot gets it, and the orchestra provides a lean, clear sonority that convinces you that something meaningful is happening down there underneath the welter of sound. Only the “simple” third movement might raise an eyebrow, with it’s extremely quick tempo, but the phrasing helps to make the approach more convincing than you might at first believe.

The two short pieces, The Unanswered Question and Central Park in the Dark, belong together, but seldom get presented that way. It’s great to have the opportunity to hear them in their proper sequence. Finally, Morlot offers a very attractive, flowing account of the Third Symphony, with textures keenly observed in order to provide this gentle music with the maximum amount of color. It’s all very well recorded before a quiet and attentive audience. The sonics do lack the richness of, say, Litton on Hyperion, my versions of reference, but this is by any standard awfully good.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Hallowe’en (about 1914) ‘is but a take-off of a Halloween party and bonfire - the elfishness of the little boys throwing wood on the fire, etc. etc...’ To illustrate the growing bonfire, the strings enter progressively, in different keys, with oddly-placed accents. The ending is a take-off of ‘a regular coda from a proper opera, heard down the street from the bandstand’. From the technical point of view, Ives considered Hallowe’en one of his best compositions.

The vocal selections convey something of the wealth of his 175-odd songs, for which Ives wrote many of the texts. Joel Sachs and Cheryl Seltzer direct performances in this thrilling chamber program, also including Five Take-Offs, Three Quarter-tone Pieces, and Sunrise.

REVIEW:

The opening song-group, very well sung, begins lyrically with The Housatonic at Stockbridge, but at its climax the piano accompaniment goes wild; the following Soliloquy explodes similarly, and the dissonant, untamed accompaniment continues its conflict to underline On the Antipodes. Sunrise (Ives’s final song) initially brings relative peace and an Elysian violin solo but still has an agitated climax. In the brief Remembrance (of the composer’s father), the cello enters too, to create a simple eulogy in which the violin persists. In Aeschylus and Sophocles the wildness erupts into frenzy at the words ‘Accursed be the race’, but the anger subsides for the final ‘Farewell’, and the last word is with the cello.

The first of the instrumental pieces, The Gong on the Hook and Ladder, pictures the annual parade of the neighbourhood Fire Company. Hallowe’en is a busy, dissonant Scherzo (the strings playing in different keys), suggesting the growing flames of the bonfire, with children running round it. In Re Con Moto et al. brings the most ferocious dissonance of all ‘to stretch ear muscles’, as Ives suggested. The piano pieces, Five Take-offs (implying improvisatory freedom, but in fact highly organized), were published as recently as 1991, and would make a stimulating centrepiece for any modern piano recital. The untamed, feral Jumping Frog has an underlying boldly controlled cantus firmus. Then, astonishingly, Song without (Good) Words is quite beautiful—very romantic, but with wrong notes—and Scene Episode begins in much the same mood of emotional serenity, which is not quite sustained. Bad Resolutions and Good WAN! Opens with a hymn but once more, characteristically, the peace is boldly interrupted.

The Three Quarter-Tone Pieces are aurally the most fascinating of all, more remarkably so as they are very listenable. Originally written in 1924 for a double keyboard microtonal piano, they are now usually played as a simultaneous piano duo, using two pianos, tuned a microtone apart. They really do ‘tweak the ear muscles’, the first bell-like, the second in wild ragtime, and the third boldly fantasizing on America ’tis of thee or God save the Queen (according to your nationality).

All in all, this makes a fine, characteristic anthology, splendidly realized...In many of the pieces Ives’s habit of including a phrase or two of deliberate banality amid the wildness adds piquancy, well caught in these performances from the New York-based group, Continuum. The instrumental piece Hallowe’en has a bass drum entry that takes you terrifyingly by surprise, helped by the vivid recording. The Take-offs (an expression Ives used as meaning improvisation) are simpler but just as original.

-- Penguin Guide

Bill Ives has enjoyed a rich and varied career as both performer and composer (Grayston Ives). These experiences, culminating in nearly two decades as Informator Choristarum (Director of Music) at Magdalen College, Oxford, are reflected in a compositional style which is complex yet accessible, rich and colourful. His choral music comes from the heart, and this deeply personal reaction to the texts enables the performer or listener to engage with and enjoy the music to its full extent. This recording represents two ‘firsts’ for the choirs of Jesus College, Cambridge: The first time the choir have collaborated on a recording with the Britten Sinfonia, as well as is the first time both chapel and college choirs they have joined forces for an entire album. Bill (Grayston) Ives writes: “In the Requiem many influences are thrown into the musical melting pot and will be apparent to the discerning listener. Ultimately, the piece is firmly rooted in the Anglican choral tradition (written specifically for liturgical performance), the distillation of a lifetime in music ... The delicate, sweet sound of a pair of tiny hand-held cymbals is heard at the opening and at intervals throughout. They were bought at Snape Maltings from a group of Tibetan monks who were resident there during the summer of 2008 when ideas for the piece were forming.”

Charles Ives 150 (1874-1954)

REVIEW:

Of all the composers on whom modern musicology is inflicting its current "completion mania", the cause of Ives makes more sense than most. His manuscripts were a mess, his decision-making random, and much of his music consists of "works in progress". He was working on a Third Set for orchestra in the late 1920s when he gave up composing, and with the exception of the last movement--that at 12 minutes lasts way too long--this collaboration between David Gray Porter and Nors Josephson comes across as pretty convincing. Certainly this is true of Porter's reconstruction of the first two movements (of three).

James Sinclair conducts Ives with unflagging confidence and expertise. He uses the first version (1914) of Three Places in New England--less angular than the chamber orchestral revision, with its prominent piano part--and the result sounds markedly less radical, more "late Romantic", and that's a refreshing change. Now that the shock value of Ives has largely worn off, we need to be able to experience his works simply as good music, and Sinclair makes that case here, as he also does in the Second Set. This neglected piece is every bit as fine as the more popular Three Places, and it deserves as much attention. Warmly detailed engineering keeps the often dense textures clear, and the Malmö orchestra plays with an easy naturalness that goes hand in hand with Sinclair's sure guidance.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Ives - acclaimed by his champion Leonard Bernstein as the "first great American composer", who, "all alone in his Connecticut barn, created his own private musical revolution" - Sony Classical presents the most authoritative recording collection ever released of works by this eccentric, prophetic genius.

The 5-CD box set Charles Ives - The Anniversary Edition is a unique and provocative introduction only released previously 50 years ago on LP by Columbia Masterworks under the art direction of Henrietta Condak to celebrate Ives's centenary.

The first disc examines "The Many Faces of Charles Ives" through eight diverse works recorded between 1964 and 1970: Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic in The Fourth of July and The Unanswered Question; General William Booth Enters into Heaven, one of Ives's towering achievements, and The Circus Band are performed by the Gregg Smith Singers; baritone Thomas Stewart sings the moving song In Flanders Fields; organist E. Power Biggs plays Ives's Variations on "America"; composer Gunther Schuller conducts The Pond for chamber orchestra; and the Largo cantabile Hymn is performed by the New York String Quartet and double bass player Alvin Brehm. CD 2, "The Celestial Country", offers Ives's early cantata by that name, composed in 1897-99 for his conservative Yale composition teacher Horatio Parker. It is sung by the Gregg Smith Singers (accompanied by the Columbia Chamber Orchestra), who also perform arrangements of four of Ives's most powerful patriotic songs with the American Symphony Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski conducting. "The Things Our Fathers Loved", CD 3, contains 25 of Ives's songs, delivered by the soprano Helen Boatwright, who specialized in American song. She is partnered by John Kirkpatrick, who studied and worked closely with Ives and is still regarded as the most authoritative interpreter of his piano music. Gramophone in 1974 praised this famous recording as "the finest selection ever to appear" on LP of "what may well turn out to be considered his most important, characteristic and consistently inspired body of music."

This album showcases a selection of Ives’ shorter works for orchestra. Experiments, marches, arrangements, and enticingly incomplete fragments are included alongside the Four Ragtime Dances and Chromâtimelôdtune, one of Ives’ most startling creations. Ives specialist James Sinclair conducts. Includes seven world premiere recordings. Released to mark the 150th anniversary of Ives’s birth.

Discover the brilliance of the iconic John Neumeier in this captivating double feature. The Glass Menagerie, inspired by Tennessee Williams' poignant drama, showcases Neumeier's extraordinary talent for storytelling through movement. At the center of this production is renowned ballet dancer Alina Cojocaru, who inspired John Neumeier to create the piece. Together with the acclaimed Hamburg Ballet, she delivers a performance that dances on the heartstrings and lingers in the soul. Complementing this masterpiece is John Neumeier - A Life for Dance, Andreas Morell's intimate documentary that offers a glimpse into the passion and vision of one of the greatest choreographers of our time. This edition is a must-have for dance enthusiasts and lovers of profound artistic expression.

Discover the brilliance of the iconic John Neumeier in this captivating double feature. The Glass Menagerie, inspired by Tennessee Williams' poignant drama, showcases Neumeier's extraordinary talent for storytelling through movement. At the center of this production is renowned ballet dancer Alina Cojocaru, who inspired John Neumeier to create the piece. Together with the acclaimed Hamburg Ballet, she delivers a performance that dances on the heartstrings and lingers in the soul. Complementing this masterpiece is John Neumeier - A Life for Dance, Andreas Morell's intimate documentary that offers a glimpse into the passion and vision of one of the greatest choreographers of our time. This edition is a must-have for dance enthusiasts and lovers of profound artistic expression.

This is an album of first-rate contemporary American works for violin piano, with superb performances by Pia Liptak, violin, and Yi-Wen Chang, piano. Pia Liptak: Fantasy; Charles Ives: Second Sonata for Violin and Piano; Pia Liptak: Four Haiku; David Liptak: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Baljinder Sekhon: Three Little Lights

Escale en Nouvelle-Angleterre

Celebrating the sesquicentenary of Charles Ives’ birth, New England-based pianist and Ives scholar nonpareil Donald Berman releases a recording of the composer’s “Concord Sonata” using his own newly prepared edition which reveals fresh insights into the iconic work. Berman’s immersion into Ives’ sound world began under the tutelage of pianist John Kirkpatrick who gave the New York premiere of the “Concord Sonata” in 1939. Throughout many years of study and reflection, Berman discovered numerous notes and alterations that Ives made within the Concord’s manuscript pages, each one “a step toward realising his vision for a three-dimensional auditory experience.” Berman concluded that the first movement of the Concord, as Ives imagined it, is quite different than today’s commonly accepted version; his new edition includes two pages worth of material, masterfully recorded here for the first time.

The album opens with the elegiac “The St. Gaudens (Black March)”, referring to the eponymous sculpture in the Boston Common that depicts the Massachusetts 54th, the first Union army regiment of African American soldiers, that is known widely in its orchestral version as the first movement of Ives’ Three Places in New England.