An Ives Newsletter - 20 October 2005

Happy 131st Birthday to Charles Ives!

H. Wiley Hitchcock’s critical commentary for 129 Songs is now available on the Ives site. Use the lower left “Critical Commentaries” link, then chose “129 Songs.” This is the complete commentary; the published score offers only the “Selected Critical Commentary.” The Ives Society intends in the future to offer the complete critical commentaries for all of its scholarly editions. (Most editions have a distillation of the commentary.)

BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) informs us that Charles Ives was the 5th most performed American composer in the USA during 2004 (behind Copland, Barber, Bernstein, and Gershwin. Rounding out the Top 10 are Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Rouse, Corigliano, and Daugherty). In 2003, Ives ranked third behind Copland and Bernstein.

Recording News—What? Three Concords!?

Hyperion has released Marc-Andre Hamelin’s second recording of “Concord” Sonata (along with Barber’s piano sonata) recorded in Wood Hall, London, April 2004: Hyperion CDA67469.

Susan Graham sings seventeen Ives songs and Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays “Concord” Sonata on Warner Classics 2564-60297-2. This recording garnered Susan Graham the 2004 Grammy Award Winner for “Best Vocal Performance.”

Naxos has released Steven Mayer’s performance of “Concord” Sonata, Varied Air and Variations, The Celestial Railroad, and Four Transcriptions from ‘‘Emerson’’ No.1. Recorded at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Toronto, Canada, January 2002: Naxos (American Classics) 8.559127.

Naxos has re-released Continuum's 1988 Ives CD, originally made for Musical Heritage Society (Naxos 8559193). Music includes some spiky songs (“Soliloquy,” “On the Antipodes,” “Aeschylus and Sophocles,” “Sunrise,” etc. sung by Sheila Schonbrun and Victoria Villamil), some chamber works (The Gong on the Hook and Ladder in the quintet version, Hallowe’en, and In Re Con Moto et al.), Five Take-Offs, and Three Quarter-Tone Pieces.

EMI has just released a new CD “All My Heart...American Songs” sung by Deborah Voigt with Brian Zeger, piano: Angel Records 57964-2. Ives songs include “The Side Show,” “Two Little Flowers,” “Down East,” “The Circus Band,” “Berceuse,” “At The River,” and “The Children’s Hour” (plus songs of Bernstein, Ben Moore, Griffes, and Amy Beach).

Ives’s Psalm 90 is included on “Heaven to Earth” sung by the Westminster Choir led by Joseph Flummerfelt: Avie 0046.

Haenssler has released Michael Gielen leading the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg in Ives’s Central Park in the Dark and The Unanswered Question (recorded in 1995): Hänssler Classic CD 93.097 (along with Mahler’s First Symphony).

Sony has re-released most of Leonard Bernstein’s earlier recordings of Ives (including Symphonies 2 & 3, Holiday Symphony, Central Park in the Dark, and The Unanswered Question). The Symphony No. 2 & 3 release includes Bernstein’s 1960 talk about Ives.

Col Legno has released Michael Stern’s interpretation of Ives’s Symphony No. 2 and Universe Symphony (Larry Austin’s fantasia on the Ives materials) with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded live at Hermann Neuberger Sporthalle, Völkingen, Germany, in 1998 (Universe) and at Grosser Sendesaal des SR, in 1999 (Symphony No.2): Col Legno WWE 1CD.

The Stereo Society has released Johnny Reinhard’s studio realization of his version of Universe Symphony: The Stereo Society SS007.

Interesting reviews of some of these recordings are found at <http://www.musicweb-international.com/Ives/03_Recordings_Main_Menu.htm>, a newsy and fulsome site maintained by Scott Mortensen. (This site is reachable from the Ives site by the “Best CDs” link.)

In the Can

During 2004–05 Andrew Litton and The Dallas Symphony have recorded the four numbered symphonies of Ives in their critical editions for eventual release by Hyperion.

In the Offing

On April 13, 14, and 15, 2006 Michael Tilson Thomas will lead the San Francisco Symphony in Ives’s Holidays Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California; Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, will solo in Mahler’s "Rückert" Lieder (program also includes Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra). The program comes to Carnegie Hall (New York City) on April 20, 2006.

Writings Online

Chuck Holton of Durham, North Carolina has posted an essay entitled "The Nine Symphonies of Charles Ives" on his website <

And there is a new dissertation (for the Univ. of Colorado) by Mark Zobel on Ives’s Symphony No. 3 posted in hypertext on <http://www.markzobel.com/diss.htm#TOC>.

Send word

Over 600 people have registered at the Ives site. If you have information to share, please send it to <jsinclair@charlesives.org>.