A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives

James B. Sinclair’s A Descriptive Catalogue of The Music of Charles Ives is an invaluable resource that systematically presents the complete works of the composer. The full catalogue of compositions is organized into 12 genres, and for each work, information such as the instrumentation, time duration, incipit, premiere performance, and musical borrowings are given. This resource also includes pertinent supplementary information, such as a chronology of significant events in the composer’s life and a list of sound recordings made by Ives.

The publication was released in 1999 by the Yale University Press, and updated in 2012 for electronic publication by the Yale University Music Library. The catalogue allows performers, scholars, and listeners to easily and thoroughly examine the full scope of Ives’s output. As well, Sinclair frequently makes reference to the original manuscripts, letters, and other writings of the composer, which are part of the Charles Ives Papers, held at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University.

In the preface, Sinclair highlights the numerous stages that were required “to make sense out of notorious chaos of his music manuscripts,”¹ which took place over many decades. The works in the catalogue are numbered sequentially from 1 through 728, and the works are listed alphanumerically by genre, which include the following: “Works for Orchestra,” “Works for Band,” “Works for Chamber Ensemble,” “Works for Piano,” “Works for Organ,” “Works for Choral Ensemble,” “Works for Stage,” “Songs,” “Exercises,” “Arrangements of Works by Other Composers,” “Unidentified Fragments,” and “Lost or Projected Works.”

Under each piece, Sinclair also includes a “Comment” section, where he includes descriptions of the music, discussions of manuscript source materials, and quotations from the writings of Ives and his contemporaries, as well as other details. Other sections of A Descriptive Catalogue include Ives’s original lists of works, a chronological presentation of the song collections by manuscript and published groupings, and a letter by John Kirkpatrick describing the funeral of Charles Ives, which Sinclair describes as “deeply moving and insightful in its sensitive writing.”²

In the conclusion of the “Acknowledgments” section, Sinclair playfully reminds the reader of Ives’s own perspective on organizing his music:

“After all this collective effort, we might note that Ives pokes fun (typically) at such pursuits…

‘After [this] has been put in order, will it be in order to have it in order - Rollo?’

We hope so.”³

¹ p. 6
² p. 688
³ p. xvii