Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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).

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.