Charles Ives and Aaron Copland - A Listener's Guide: Parallel Lives Series, No. 1 Their Lives and Their Music [Paperback]

Daniel Felsenfeld (Author), Aaron Copland (Composer), Charles Ives (Composer)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2004 | Series: Parallel Lives (Book 1)

This book explains-in vivid picturesque detail-why we still listen with admiration to the work of these men, and how their personalities and the era in which they lived affected their music. The accompanying CD includes a sampling of their music from masterworks such as Appalachian Spring and The Unanswered Question to less common gems and includes guided listenings of exactly how the pieces work.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The title of this book is a misnomer: there are no parallels between these two composers' lives except that both were Americans and musical innovators. They were as different as they could be. Copland was an open-hearted, open-minded cosmopolitan New Yorker, who, actively engaged in human and social affairs, wrote mainly accessible music and books for the people. Ives was an embittered, idealistic, secretive recluse who wrote mainly inaccessible music and books for himself while selling insurance for a living. Yet, as Daniel Felsenfeld shows in this thoughtful, enlightening book, each in his own way laid the foundation for what came to be defined as the "American" sound and spirit in music. Convinced that a composer's work is inseparable from his life and personality, Felsenfeld divides his book into three inventively organized sections. Beginning with a brief biography and ending with a discussion of some of his subjects' striking characteristics, he shows how their training and experiences influenced their work and careers and then devotes the central part to analyzing their music. Guidance for listening and understanding is aided by a CD of their most familiar compositions in excellent performances.

Copland, son of Jewish Polish-Lithuanian immigrants, studied with Nadja Boulanger, but being surrounded by French music and culture only strengthened his resolve to become an "American" composer. Despite a brief flirtation with serialism, he was determined to close the gap between composer and audience, and he succeeded admirably: his colorful scores, often suffused with folk and jazz idioms, speak to everyone; he became not only one of the most popular, but most respected composers of his time. Ives, whose musician father opened his ears to unheard-of musical combinations, was born into a New England family steeped in transcendental philosophy. His music, eccentric and deliberately perverse, is an acquired taste. Any composer who feels impelled to write a long, linguistically and philosophically impenetrable essay explaining his "magnum opus" can hardly expect to capture a large audience. Felsenfeld makes the best possible case for it, but one senses admiration rather than love. The author's style is not always felicitous (Copland's teacher "feared that Ives' influence might improperly influence the talented young man"), but having obviously read all of Copland's popular and Ives' indigestible writings, he was perhaps improperly influenced himself. --Edith Eisler

Review

". . . All this biography, analysis and listening advice is presented in 244 pages—impressively concise." -- Muso Magazine UK, Spring 2005

"Felsenfeld writes a breezy prose based on recent research . . ." -- Clavier, November 2005

"The reading and listening experience is a success from start to finish. . . ." -- Vocal Images.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Amadeus Press (November 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574670980
• ISBN-13: 978-1574670981
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,885,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not so inaccessible Ives, January 5, 2012

By 

Antony Cooke "Antony Cooke" (California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Charles Ives and Aaron Copland - A Listener's Guide: Parallel Lives Series, No. 1 Their Lives and Their Music (Paperback)

This comment is less about an excellent effort to introduce listeners to some of the most characteristically American music than it is to remark of the 'official' description/review of Amazon. Edith Eisler's comments in summing up Ives during the first paragraph of her 'official' Amazon review are at very least perplexing, and at most completely out of step with the composer and the man. Her remarks seem to reflect her own attitudes more than the composer's. She is unrelenting in her follow-up comments in the next paragraph, maintaining that Ives could not expect to reach a large audience. It's a funny thing that he did, even if it took a while. Bach had the same problem, apparently good company, as well as many amongst those who have striven to open new horizons.

She does no service to music lovers with such summations of someone who, while complex to be sure, would seem to be more obviously defined as a genuinely altruistic human being, idealistic, and above all, always uniquely creative and original in all that he did - even if his New England crustiness permeates his vision of life. That's part of his charm. It was not Ives' intention, any more than it was any composer's, to create "inaccessible" music; what would be the point to that? Ives wrote what he explored and heard in his mind; possible consequences of rejection were not allowed to impact what he had set out to do. Ives had faith that his time would come, as can readily be seen by his enthusiastic support of those who presented his music and tried to gain it acceptance in later years. He certainly did not try to stifle it, but rather strove to make it available and accepted.

It was not his fault that American society at the time he was engaged on his major output would not embrace what he gave them, that musicians were seen in less than an acceptable societal light. It was not his fault that he was often the target of savage ridicule - even cheap-shot accusations of merely copying European progressives, and not very well at that. Even that did not appear to embitter him. But what embittered Ms. Eisler against this man?

Ives' place in the pantheon of greats seems assured despite attempts we see from time to time, even now, to belittle him. Some have tried even to create doubt about his original role in the 'new' music. It can be shown fairly readily that his methods had little in common to the applications of some similar-seeming directions in European music near the time. Putnam's Camp, alone, (of which the bulk of its roots may be definitively dated to 1903-4), proves that Ives was no copycat, and had promoted radically new musical and technical concepts at least a decade ahead of any European. There is no way that Ives could have been exposed to the kind of musical upbringing of a 'sophisticated' European, let alone had a broad familiarity with that culture, regardless of his time at Yale.

Any parallels between Ives and his contemporaries are not especially constructive either, because Ives' music still sounds utterly unlike any other, regardless of what it was built upon. Even when he revised or expanded his music in later years (considered by some remaining foe to be a musical 'sin'), it had still started out original in concept and sound, and modernistic from the start, only reinforcing his continuing quest to grow. Some noted academics seem always to have missed that point in their analyses, let alone the special, nostalgic, often other-worldly flavor - not just the more identifiable Americana that Ives imparted to his earliest compositions.

It seems to me that one could not like Ives' music and comment about it in the terms used in this particular review. Even though Eisler purports to champion what Ives accomplished in creating the 'American' sound, it is with using only negative connotations that she does so. Does she think Ives' contribution was some kind of accident, despite Ives not being in any way appealing as a human being or musician? Regardless of the motives, in doing so, Ms. Eisler reveals that she is no different to those members of American society of a hundred years ago who saw Ives only through musical parameters of their own making. One assume, therefore, that she is amongst those who still do so today - all while maintaining a refusal to accord him the credit he is overdue by effectively damning him with faint praise. As our greatest American composer, Ives needs no such dismissive introduction.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's on the CD you ask..., August 3, 2005

By 

Allen Salyer "AlarmClockMagazine" (Troy, MI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Charles Ives and Aaron Copland - A Listener's Guide: Parallel Lives Series, No. 1 Their Lives and Their Music (Paperback)

Since a third of the book is dedicated to the discussion and dissection of Charles Ives' and Aaron Copland's compositions, here is a listing of the music on the accompanying BMG CD: 1) Copland: Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Harp and Piano; 2) Copland: Appalachian Spring; 3) Copland: El Salon Mexico; 4) Ives: The Unanswered Question; 5) Ives: "Memories"; 6) Ives: "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven"; and 7) Ives: Three Places in New England - II. "Putnam's Camp". The recording is dominated by Michael Tilson Thomas who appears as both conductor of the London and San Francisco Symphonies and as pianist on "Memories." Also on the disc are Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra (Appalachian Spring) and Eduardo Mata conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (El Salon Mexico).

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars introduction to the music with a CD, January 26, 2005

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Charles Ives and Aaron Copland - A Listener's Guide: Parallel Lives Series, No. 1 Their Lives and Their Music (Paperback)

Brief biographies of the two premier American composers are followed by tutorials on their music focusing on better-known, widely-aclaimed pieces. The guide succeeds in making the music accessible without dumbing it down at all or trying to popularize it. Felsenfeld is himself a composer and a music writer bringing to the task not only compatibility with Ives and Copland, but also an educator's understanding of the reader's position in wanting to learn more about them and enhance appreciation of their music. With the book is the treat of a CD offering ample samplings of music, including Copland's complete "Appalachian Spring" and four pieces of Ives', who wrote shorter, intense works.