December

 

  1894 Date on manuscript: song A Christmas Carol "before 1898"; letter: "around 1894"
  1896 First publication: song A Scotch Lullaby, New Haven: Yale Courant 33/5 (Dec, Third Week)
  1897 Date on manuscript: song No More
  1901 choral Processional: Let There Be Light dedicated to Central Presbyterian Church, New York City
  1901 Premiere: lost organ Piece for Communion Service (Charles Ives, org), at Central Presbyterian Church. While at Central Presbyterian Church, Ives composed this and several organ works that went into his Symphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting and conducted the premiere of his cantata The Celestial Country.
  1909 Date on manuscript: song A Farewell to Land, sketch—"70 W. 11" [New York City]
  1924 Edith Ives writes words and tune of her song Christmas Carol which was then set by Ives himself.
  1932 First publication: Seven Songs. Cos Cob Press. Aaron Copland selected these seven songs from Ives’s 114 Songs and accompanied at the piano the premiere at Saratoga Springs, NY (1 May 1932) with baritone Herbert Linscott: Charlie Rutlage, Evening, The Indians, Maple Leaves, The See’r, Serenity, and Walking.
  1962 First recording: piano Three-Page Sonata (Luise Vosgerchian; issued in 1963 by Cambridge Records); song Nov. 2, 1920 (An Election) and Religion (Corinne Curry [S] and Luise Vosgerchian [pf]; issued in 1963 by Cambridge)

Dec 1

1897 Premiere: choral The Bells of Yale (Yale Glee Club) at Hoyt’s Opera House, South Norwalk, Conn.
  1950 First recording: Sonata No. 1 for Piano (William Masselos [pf], for Columbia Records, issued 1953)
  1975 First recording: song Weil’ auf mir [German text] (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau [Bar] and Michael Ponti [pf]; issued in 1976 by Deutsche Grammophon)

Dec 2

1991 First recording: choral The Bells of Yale (Henry Herford [Bar], men’s voices and members of Ensemble Modern, cond. by Ingo Metzmacher; issued in 1992 by EMI Classics)

Dec 5

1934 First recording: songs General William Booth and God Bless and Keep Thee (Radiana Pazmor [S] and Genevieve Pitot [pf], for New Music Quarterly Recordings, issued in 1935)
   

Dec 6

1949 First publication: Tone Roads No. 1, New York: Peer International
  1962 Premiere: Chromâtimelôdtune [Schuller realization] and Set No. 3 (by a pick-up chamber orchestra, cond. by Gunther Schuller), at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City

Dec 7

1931 Premiere: "In the Night" [mvt. iii of Set for Theatre Orchestra] (Saint Paul Chamber Music Society ensemble, cond. by John J. Becker), at St. Thomas College Auditorium, St. Paul, Minn.

Dec 8

1932 Premiere: song The New River (Mary Bell [S] and Henry Cowell [pf]), at Musikhalle, Kleiner Saal, Hamburg, Germany

Dec 10

1822 Birth of César Franck at Liége, France. Ives admired the honest religiosity of Franck’s music and quoted his Symphony in D Minor in three related songs: The Song of the Dead, The Ending Year, and The Waiting Soul.
  1908 Birth of pianist (and composer) Olivier Messiaen at Avignon, France. Messiaen was the accompanist for the world premiere in Paris of a group of Ives’s songs, 5 March 1936, with singer Victor Prahl: The Innate, Majority, Paracelsus, Requiem, and Resolution.
  1913 Birth of conductor (and composer) Morton Gould at New York City. Gould and the Chicago Symphony made the first recordings of Symphony No. 1 and Orchestral Set No. 2 (also premiere of the latter).
  1947 First publications: piano Study No. 22 and "Three Protests" [from Varied Air and Variations], in New Music

Dec 11

1974 First recording: Orchestral Set No. 1: Three Places in New England [Sinclair version for large orchestra] (Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. by Eugene Ormandy; issued in 1976 by RCA)
  1978 Premiere: Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Piano [Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day, and Thanksgiving in John Kirkpatrick’s reconstruction] (Daniel Stepner [vn], John Kirkpatrick [pf]), in the Music Building, State University of New York, College at Purchase, Purchase, NY

Dec 12

1895 Ives plays his interlude on BETHANY [Interludes for Hymns, no. 2], at Center Church, New Haven, Conn. Ives used BETHANY prominently in his song Down East.
  1901 Premiere: lost organ Prelude [II] (Charles Ives, org), at Central Presbyterian Church (developed into mvt. i of Symphony No. 3)
  1928 Premiere: piano Thoreau [mvt. iv of Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass.] (Clifton Furness [pf]), at Hartford, Conn.

Dec 13

1797 Birth of poet Heinrich Heine at Düsseldorf, Germany. Ives used Heine poems for songs Du bist wie eine Blume, Frühlingslied, Gruss, Ich grolle nicht, Die Lotosblume, and two versions of My Native Land.

Dec 14

1902 Date on manuscript: song Her Eyes "put in [song] Mirage"

Dec 15

1912 Date on manuscript: choral Matthew Arnold Overture, sketch —"7 night job [completed]!" The overture is used, in part, in the song West London.

Dec 16

1770 Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven at Bonn, Germany. Ives greatly admired Beethoven’s music, creativity and strength. Among the several Beethoven pieces from which Ives borrowed, most important is Symphony No. 5 (Emerson Overture/Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass., piano Study No. 9: The Anti-Abolitionist Riots, The Celestial Railroad, and Four Transcriptions from "Emerson").
  1901 Premiere: lost Largo for Violin and Organ (William Haesche [vn] and Charles Ives [org]), at Central Presbyterian Church, New York City (which went into Largo for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano)

Dec 20

1914 Date on manuscript: Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano "ended"
  1963 Premiere: Tone Roads No. 3 and Scherzo: Over the Pavements (Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble, cond. by James Tenney), at the New School Auditorium, New York City

Dec 21

1908 Date on manuscript: Robert Browning Overture, sketch of mm. 107–140—"70 W. 11"
  1987 First recording: songs The All-Enduring and Song (Jan DeGaetani [Mez] and Gilbert Kalish [pf]; issued in 1988 by Nonesuch Records)
    Winter solstice (annual): song/choral December

Dec 22

1978 First recording: Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Piano [Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day, Thanksgiving in the Kirkpatrick reconstruction] (Daniel Stepner [vn] with John Kirkpatrick [pf]; issued in 1982 by Music Masters)

Dec 24

1947 Birth of Ives editor, conductor, and band arranger Kenneth Singleton. Singleton is the editor for current or forthcoming publications of Symphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting, Symphony No. 4/iii, Postlude in F, Chromâtimelôdtune, Gyp the Blood or Hearst!? [mvt. ii of Set No. 2], chamber ens Mists, Evening, Remembrance, An Old Song Deranged, Set for Theatre Orchestra, March No. 2, with "Son of a Gambolier", March No. 3, with "My Old Kentucky Home", and choral The Bells of Yale, The Boys in Blue, and A Song of Mory’s.

Dec 25

1642 Birth of naturalist philosopher Sir Isaac Newton near Grantham, England. Ives’s Universe Symphony contemplates the universe as Newton understood it and goes on to contemplate the expanding universe of Edwin Hubble.
  1886 Premiere: piano Minuetto, Op. 4 (Charles E. Ives? [pf]), location not specified. The earliest performable works of Ives are Holiday Quickstep and song Slow March (both of 1887).
  1887 Date on manuscript: Holiday Quickstep—[started] "Xmas '87"
  1888 Holiday Quickstep played at Methodist Sunday School program
  1898 Premiere: "Adeste Fideles" in an Organ Prelude (Charles Ives, org), at First Presbyterian Church, Bloomfield, New Jersey
  1903 Date on manuscript: Overture and March "1776" score-sketch [begun], "Danbury"
    Christmas (annual): Symphony No. 4, mvt. i; Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, mvt. iii; "Adeste Fideles" in an Organ Prelude; songs A Christmas Carol, Christmas Carol (Edith Ives’s), and Watchman

Dec 27

1931 Premiere: Decoration Day [mvt. ii of "Holidays Symphony"] (Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana, cond. by Amadeo Roldán), at Teatro Nacional, Havana
  1945 Ives is elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters (along with William Schuman).
  1949 Premiere: songs Chanson de Florian, Lincoln, the Great Commoner, and The Rainbow (So May It Be!) (Harry Wayne [Bar] and Esther Lundell [pf]), at McMillin Theatre, Columbia University, New York City

Dec 28

1897 Date on manuscript: Symphony No. 1/iv, score-sketch [finished]
  1914 Date on manuscript: The Masses (Majority), date on p. 9 of score, "27 W. 11 [New York City"

Dec 29

1953 First publication: The Unanswered Question, New York: Southern Music Publishing Company

Dec 30

1865 Birth of poet Rudyard Kipling at Bombay, India. Ives used Kipling poems in a group of songs: The Love Song of Har Dyal, The Only Son, The Song of the Dead, Tarrant Moss, and Tolerance.
  1949 First publication"Adeste Fideles" in an Organ Prelude and Variations on "America", together, New York: Music Press