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 Charles Edward Ives  Charles Ives, circa 1889 Source: MSS 14, The Charles Ives Papers in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University  |
Page 1 - Page 2 Charles Edward Ives (1874 – 1954) Time, Place, Person The music of Charles Ives, some of America’s most original, springs from a deep interest in time, place, and person. Ives' often unconventional music is packed with borrowed material such as hymn tunes, popular songs, marches, and patriotic songs that make reference to specific places, scenes from childhood, or important figures from life and literature. In works such as The Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common, Putnam’s Camp, and The Housatonic at Stockbridge, from Three Places in New England, and Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day, and The Fourth of July, from the Holidays Symphony, Ives seems to be seeking to recreate an idealized world of his youth and memory through a wholly unique approach to composition.
For example he would stretch violin strings over a clothes press with weights and experiment with quarter tones, the intervals between conventional notes. He would place his bands in varying relation spatially in order to enjoy the novel sounds that resulted. Listening to two bands approaching one another playing different marches, passing in close proximity and then moving on, provides the most extraordinary sound experience for the stationary listener. 2From his father Charles learned that music is experienced with the people, in popular and religious music. The spirit of common people engaged in musical activity became his model. Even more than the experiments of his father, it was his father’s musical world that permeates Ives’ music. In addition to music borrowed from the classical canon, Ives borrows largely from the music of his small town childhood and from the popular music of 1830 – 1890, his father’s music. Finally, much of Ives’ music reflects directly on a childhood rich with musical stimulation of a most unusual sort. The stunning innovations found throughout Ives’ output are most often in service of an attempt to convey, in composition, the memory of a childhood filled with music. Perhaps another thing that Ives learned from his father was that it is very difficult to make a living as a musician. After attending Yale, Ives went into the insurance business and founded the Ives and Myrick Insurance Agency. Ives was an innovative and successful businessman and insurance made him wealthy. Ives is also one of the only examples of a part time composer of such achievement. While it is possible that these circumstances were in some ways a hindrance to his creative output, it is hard not to imagine that they also freed him from a need to recognize practical concerns or accessibility. On the other hand, Ives became increasingly interested in disseminating his music and having performances. In 1921, privately and at his own expense, Ives published both the Piano Sonata No. 2 (“Concord, Mass., 1840 – 1860”) and the book length commentary Essays Before a Sonata. In 1922 he published the 114 Songs. next page |
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