1892: Premiere: March "Intercollegiate" (Danbury Band), at Danbury Fair
1894: Ives shows At Parting and other works to Prof. Horatio Parker at Yale. Parker was not positively impressed, dismissing some of Ives’s notions as composing outside the rules.
1907: Date on manuscript: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, mvt. i, ink copy, "July '03, Oct. '07"
1912: Trial of criminal Harry Horowitz ("Gyp the Blood")—probably the date of sketch of Ives’s vehement parody "Gyp the Blood" or Hearst!? Which is Worst?! (mvt. ii of Set No. 2) which questions whether William Randolph Hearst exploitational news reporting isn’t also criminal.
1915: Date on manuscript: Universe Symphony/Sec. A, "Plateau, Keene Valley" (vacation spot in New York state)
1941: First publication: La Pregunta Incontestada [The Unanswered Question], Montevideo: Boletín Latino-Americano de Música (an unauthorized version that was soon withdrawn from circulation)
1962: First recording: The Indians [mvt. i of Set No. 2], The Rainbow, Tone Roads Nos. 1 & 3 (The Boston Chamber Ensemble, cond. by Harold Farberman; issued in 1963 by Cambridge Records); The Pond [with voice] (Corinne Curry [S], The Boston Chamber Ensemble, cond. by Harold Farberman; issued in 1963 by Cambridge Records)
1975: First recording: song The Innate (Jan DeGaetani [Mez] and Gilbert Kalish [pf]; issued in 1976 by Nonesuch Records)
1990: First recording: songs Du bist wie eine Blume, Ein Ton, Marie [German text],Minnelied, Rosamunde [German text],and Rosenzweige (Thomas Hampson [Bar] and Armen Guzelimian [pf]; issued in 1991 by Teldec Classics)
Oct 1 1832: Birth of songwriter Henry Clay Work at Middletown, Conn. Work was one of the leading composer’s of songs during and after the Civil War. Ives used some of his songs to evoke the era:
Kingdom Coming (Fourth of July)
Marching Through Georgia (Symphony No. 4/ii, Decoration Day, Three Places in New England/i-ii, Calcium Light Night,March: The Circus Band, "Country Band" March, The Gong on the Hook and Ladder, String Quartet No. 2/i-ii, Trio for Violin, Violoncello, and Piano/ii, piano The Celestial Railroad, Waltz-Rondo, and song They Are There!)
Wake Nicodemus (Symphony No. 2/ii&v)1918: Ives argues for small-denomination treasury bonds, before the Liberty Bond Committee (Franklin D. Roosevelt [then Asst. Secretary of the Navy], absent chair), at the Manhattan Hotel. Diary: "Charlie taken sick [that evening at the hotel]...out of business all winter" (a heart attack/emotional breakdown brought on by stress and diabetes).
1933: Premiere: song Where the eagle cannot see (Ada MacLeish [S] and Aaron Copland [pf]), at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY
1998: Premiere: Emerson Overture for Piano and Orchestra (Alan Feinberg [pf], Cleveland Orchestra, cond. by Christoph Dohnányi), at Severance Hall, Cleveland, Ohio
Oct 2 1976: Premiere: Yale-Princeton Football Game [Sinclair realization] (Yale Symphony Orchestra, cond. by C. William Harwood), at Woolsey Hall, New Haven, Conn.
Oct 3 1894: Ives moves into 76 South Middle (his Yale dorm); begins at Yale College. At the address (now Connecticut Hall), Ives composed Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2(some parts); March No. 2, with "Son of a Gambolier"; March No. 3, with "My Old Kentucky Home"; Postlude in F; band March in F and C, with "Omega Lambda Chi";String Quartet No. 1; Fugue in Four Keys on "The Shining Shore"; cantata The Celestial Country/vi ("Forward, flock of Jesus"); choral The Bells of Yale, The Boys in Blue, A Song of Mory’s; and songs Country Celestial, Feldeinsamkeit, Friendship, Gruss, Ich grolle nicht, My Native Land [I], No More, On Judges’ Walk, and Qu’il m’irait bien (among others).
Oct 4 1914: Date on manuscript: Franz Milcke (NY Symphony concertmaster) tries to play through Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, at West Redding—storms out in disgust.
Oct 6 1816: Birth of hymn composer William Bradbury at York Co., Maine. Ives borrowed several of his popular hymns:
Even Me (piano Study No. 19)
Jesus Loves Me (Three Places in New England/i; Orchestral Set No. 2/i; Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano: Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting/ii)
Woodworth (Symphony No. 3/i&iii; Orchestral Set No. 3/i; organ Interlude for Hymns; song The Camp Meeting)
1969: First recording: song Things Our Fathers Loved ( Thomas Stewart [Bar] and Alan Mandel [pf]; issued in 1971 by Columbia Records)
Oct 7 1900: Date on manuscript: Ives takes a walk up the Palisades [cliffs along the Hudson River in NJ, north of the George Washington Bridge]—inspiration for songWalking
1927: John Kirkpatrick’s first letter to Ives, a questionaire about Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass.
1947: First publication: Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass., second edn., prepared by Ives with the assistance of George F. Roberts, New York: Arrow Music Press
Oct 11 1948: Joan Field (vn) and Leopold Mittman (pf) play Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano at Town Hall, New York City. In 1951 the duo made the first recording.
1963: Premiere: song Pictures (Helen Boatwright [S] and John Kirkpatrick [pf]), at the Germantown Friends School, Germantown, Penn.
Oct 12 1911: Date on manuscript: Hawthorne [mvt. ii of Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass.], at end of ink copy
Oct 14 1956: Premiere: Robert Browning Overture (Symphony of the Air, cond. by Leopold Stokowski), in Carnegie Hall, New York City
1973: Premiere: choral Serenade (Yale Chorus, cond. by Rodney Wynkoop), at Battell Chapel, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Oct 15 1952: First publication: Tone Roads No. 3, New York: Peer International
Oct 16 1925: Benjamin R. C. Low’s "Johnny Poe" appears in Yale Alumni Weekly; Ives sets it as a choral+orch piece
1967: Premiere: choral+orch An Election, The Masses (Majority), They Are There!, andLincoln, the Great Commoner (American Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Leopold Stokowski, with Raymond Buckingham [B], the Gregg Smith Singers, Ithaca College Concert Choir, and the Boys of the Choir School of St. Thomas Church), at Carnegie Hall, New York City
Oct 17 1967: First recording: choral Psalm 25 and Psalm 135 (The Gregg Smith Singers, cond. by Gregg Smith; issued in 1969 by Columbia Records)
Oct 18 1967: First recording: choral+orch An Election, The Masses (Majority), Lincoln, the Great Commoner and They Are There! (The Gregg Smith Singers, The Ithaca College Concert Choir and The American Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Leopold Stokowski; issued in 1974 by Columbia Records)
1974: First documented performance: choral Crossing the Bar and Lord God, Thy Sea Is Mighty (Gregg Smith Singers, cond. by Gregg Smith), given at Hunter College Playhouse, New York City
Oct 19 1959: First documented performance: choral He Is There! (Westport Madrigal Singers [Jeanne Kimball, dir.], and the Norwalk Symphony Society, cond. by Quinto Maganini), at the Norwalk High School Auditorium, Norwalk, Conn.
1973: First documented performance: Decoration Day for Violin and Piano (Daniel Stepner [vn], John Kirkpatrick [pf]); They Are There! [Ives’s 2-pf version] (John Kirkpatrick [pf1] and Manuel Maramba [pf2], with Elizabeth Singleton [picc], cond. by James Sinclair), in the Music Annex, Room 310, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Oct 20 1874: Birth of Charles Edward Ives, at Danbury, Conn.
1916: Date on manuscript: Luck and Work [mvt. ii of Set No. 3], score-sketch, "Redding"
1974: Premiere: choral Johnny Poe [Kirkpatrick realization] (Miami Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Miami Chamber Singers, cond. by Frederick Fennell), in Gusman Philharmonic Hall, Miami, Florida
1974: Premiere: choral Matthew Arnold Overture [Kirkpatrick realization] (Yale Symphony Orchestra, and Yale Glee Club, cond. by Robert Shaw, in Woolsey Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Oct 21 1974: Premiere: organ Canzonetta in F, Fugue in C Minor, Fugue in E-flat,Interludes for Hymns, and chamber ens Prelude on "Eventide", (Charles Krigbaum [org] with students of the Yale School of Music, cond. by Jere Lantz), in Center Church on the Green, New Haven, Conn.
1974: Premiere: Four Ragtime Dances, Nos. 2 & 4 and choral Sneak Thief. First modern performance: choral The Bells of Yale [Version 1], (Yale Theater Orchestra, cond. by James Sinclair, chorus [Jere Lantz, dir.]), in Sprague Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. Premiere: The Boys in Blue and A Song of Mory’s (The Whiffenpoofs of 1975), in Sprague Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Oct 22 1889: Ives’s first of 36 organ lessons with Alexander Gibson, one of America’s leading performer/teachers of the time. Ives soon produced his well-known organVariations on "America" (1891). Most of Ives’s organ music is lost.
1907: Ives proposes to Harmony Twichell on a walk near Farmington, Conn. Ives’s "courting songs" (those written for Harmony to her own texts) include Autumn, The South Wind, Spring Song, and The World’s Highway.
1909: Date on manuscript: Washington’s Birthday [mvt. i of "Holidays Symphony"], score-sketch "started"
Oct 24 1967: First documented performance: choral Psalm 25 (Gregg Smith Singers, cond. by Gregg Smith), in a concert in the Arts and Industries Building of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
United Nations Day (annual): choral The Masses/Majority, song Majority (Ives’s songThey Are There! mentions "a People’s World Nation.")
Oct 25 1933: First publication: Thirty-Four Songs, in New Music. Three songs appeared for the first time: At Parting, Soliloquy, and Song for Harvest Season.
1935: First publication: Eighteen [recte 19] Songs. San Francisco: New Music. Five songs appeared for the first time: Aeschylus and Sophocles, A Farewell to Land, General William Booth Enters into Heaven, On the Antipodes, and Requiem.
Oct 26 1965: First recording: Trio for Violin, Violoncello, and Piano (Nieuw Amsterdam Trio; issued in 1966 by Decca)
Oct 27 1969: First recording: songs The Light That Is Felt and Duty (Evelyn Lear [S] and Alan Mandel [pf]; issued in 1971 by Columbia Records)
Oct 28 1949: First publication: chamber ens Hallowe’en, Hillsdale, NY: Boelke-Bomart.
Oct 29 1795: Birth of poet John Keats at London, England. Ives used a Keats poem as text for "Like a Sick Eagle" (mvt. iv of Set No. 1) and song Like a Sick Eagle.
1993: Premiere: Universe Symphony, Prelude No. 1 (first 2 cycles only), Section A with "Coda" from Section C [Porter edition] (University of Northern Colorado Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Kenneth Singleton; Gray Barrier cond. for Prelude No. 1 cycles), at Ives-Copland Festival, Monfort Concert Hall, Greeley, Colorado
Oct 31 Halloween (annual): chamber ens Hallowe’en