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Programming guide: September

1905:  Date on manuscript: piano Three-Page Sonata, "Fine at Saranac Lake[, New York]"

1910:  Date on manuscript: song Mists [original version]—"last mist at Pell’s" [cabin at Elk Lake, NY]

1917:  Date on manuscript: song Tom Sails Away

1923:  Date on manuscript: song Peaks

1952:  First recording: Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano (Joan Field [vn] and Leopold Mittman [pf]; for Lyrichord label, issued 1951)

Sept 1  1902: Premiere: Skit for Danbury Fair (by the tent band), "Labor Day ... between races," Danbury, Conn.

Sept 3  1925: Letter from E. Robert Schmitz about The Celestial Railroad
1931: Premiere: Washington’s Birthday [mvt. i of "Holidays Symphony"] (New Music Society Orchestra, cond. by Nicolas Slonimsky), at the Community Playhouse, San Francisco, Calif.

Sept 5  1892: Birth of violinist Joseph Szigeti at Budapest, Hungary. Szigeti gave the premiere of Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano: Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting.

Sept 7  1946: Birth of violinist Daniel Stepner. Stepner gave the premiere of Decoration Day for Violin and Piano (19 Oct 1973) with John Kirkpatrick, and with Kirkpatrick recorded Violin Sonatas No. 1–5.
1961: Premiere: songs The Light That Is Felt, On Judges’ Walk, and Sunrise (Helen Boatwright [S] and John Kirkpatrick [pf]), in Sprague Memorial Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Sept 8  1841: Birth of Antonín DvoÍák at Nelahozeves, Bohemia. Ives modeled his first two symphonies on DvoÍák’s Symphony No. 9: From the New World (Symphonies No. 1 & 2).
1967: First recording: choral Psalm 54 (The Gregg Smith Singers, cond. by Gregg Smith; issued in 1969 by Columbia Records)

Sept 10  1912: Date on manuscript: The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common [mvt. i of Three Places in New England
  (Orchestral Set No. 1)], score, "Lake Kiwasa...Saranac [Lake, New York]"

Sept 12  1892: Symons’s "On Judges’ Walk" appears in Danbury Evening News; Ives set it as song On Judges’ Walk.

Sept 13  1965: First recording: songs Afterglow, Canon [II], Immortality, The Indians, Like a Sick Eagle, Lincoln, the
  Great Commoner, Majority, On the Antipodes, Paracelsus, Requiem, and September (Ted Puffer [T] and
James Tenney [pf]; issued in 1965 by Folkways)

Sept 14  1912: Date on manuscript: The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common [mvt. i of Three Places in New England
  (Orchestral Set No. 1)], score, p. 8, "Saranac Lake[, NY]"

Sept 15  1863: Birth of Ives’s teacher Horatio Parker at Auburndale, Mass. Parker tutored Ives’s composing of Symphony
  No. 1, String Quartet No. 1, organ Fugue in E-flat, songs Amphion, At Parting, Du bist wie eine Blume,
  Feldeinsamkeit, Ich grolle nicht, In April-tide, In My Beloved’s Eyes, Night of Frost in May, The Old
  Mother, and Wie Melodien zieht es mir, and the arrangement for orchestra of Postlude in F.
1946: First professional performance: String Quartet No. 2 (Walden String Quartet), at Yaddo Festival, Saratoga
Springs, NY

Sept 16  1911: Diary: at Pell Jones’s [cabin], Elk Lake, NY—"idea of Concord Sonata"

Sept 17  1991: First recording: songs Because Thou Art, Far from my heav’nly home, My Native Land [II], Omens and
  Oracles, Rock of Ages, and Wie Melodien zieht es mir (Mary Ann Hart [Mez] and Dennis Helmrich [pf]; issued
in 1993 by Albany Records); I travelled among unknown men, and Song of the Dead (William Sharp [Bar]
and Steven Blier [pf]; issued in 1993 by Albany Records); In Autumn, My Lou Jennine, The Old Mother,
  Those Evening Bells, and Through Night and Day (Paul Sperry [T] and Irma Vallecillo [pf]; issued in 1992 by
Albany Records); The Love Song of Har Dyal, A Perfect Day, and Two Slants (Duty & Vita) [complete]
(Dora Ohrenstein [S] and Phillip Bush [pf]; issued in 1993 by Albany Records)

Sept 18  1901: National day of mourning for President William McKinley. Ives’s March "Intercollegiate," with "Annie
  Lisle" was played by US Marine Band in Washington, DC at McKinley’s inauguration in 1897; Ives composed
his song William Will to support the Republican presidential campaign of William McKinley.

Sept 19  1921: Lenore Purcell (pf) performs unidentified excerpts from Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass. in a
lecture-demonstration by Henry Bellamann, at Columbia, SC, Atlanta, GA (and later at other locations).
1928: Arthur Hardcastle (pf) performs Emerson [mvt. i of Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass.], at the
Rudolph Schaeffer Studios, San Francisco, Calif.

Sept 21  1971: First recording: song The Collection (Anne Brubacher [S], Berkeley Chamber Singers and Alden Gilchrist
[org]; issued in 1971 by Musical Heritage Society)
1999: First release of Ives’s complete recordings as pianist and baritone ("Ives Plays Ives") on Composers
Recordings Inc. CRI-810

Sept 22  Autumn equinox (annual): Yale-Princeton Football Game; Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano; Three Harvest
  Home Chorales; songs Autumn, In Autumn, Maple Leaves, Song for Harvest Season, and Walking

Sept 24  1911: Date on manuscript: Symphony No. 4, mvt. i, score-sketch, p. 3, "The Eternal Question"

Sept 25  1955: Premiere: choral Search Me, O Lord (choir of Sage Chapel, Cornell University, cond. by John Kirkpatrick),
Ithaca, NY
1958: Birth of Ives editor, author, and vice-president of the Ives Society, Philip Lambert at Ada, Oklahoma.
Lambert has edited Largo Risoluto No. 1 and No. 2 for forthcoming publication.

Sept 26  1914: Date on manuscript: choral+orch General William Booth Enters into Heaven, ink copy
1933: Premiere: songs General William Booth Enters into Heaven, Hymn, and Swimmers (Radiana Pazmor
[Alto] and Katheryn Foster [pf]), at the Studio of Doris Barr, San Francisco, Calif.
1952: Birth of mezzo Mary Ann Hart at Warrensburg, Missouri. Hart sang for the first recording of songs Because
  Thou Art, Far from my heav’nly home, My Native Land [II], Omens and Oracles, Rock of Ages, and Wie
  Melodien zieht es mir.

Sept 27  1999: Publication of A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives by James B. Sinclair, Yale University
Press (New Haven, CT)

Sept 28  1923: Birth of Ives editor, author, and chairman of the Ives Society board, H. Wiley Hitchcock. Hitchcock has
edited the songs in 114 Songs and others for a forthcoming publication, 129 Songs, which completes the
publication of the performable songs (ca. 180) of Ives.

Sept 29  1907: Harmony Twichell sends to Ives an outline of planned opera The Kimash Hills from Saranac Lake. Ives
went no further with this project, but his plan for an opera to be called "Benedict Arnold" (or "Major John
Andre") seems to have brought forth Overture and March "1776" and possibly "Country Band" March.

Sept 30  1894: First Sunday as organist of Center Church, New Haven. For Center Church, Ives composed String Quartet
  No. 1: From the Salvation Army, Prelude on "Eventide", organ Canzonetta in F, Fugue in C Minor,
  Fugue in E-flat, Four Interludes for Hymns, choral Three Harvest Home Chorales, Psalms 24, 90, 100, and
  150, All-Forgiving, look on me, and songs Abide with me and The All-Enduring.