Customer Reviews

Charles Ives: Songs

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Although made over 20 years ago, in my opinion this is still the best recording ever made of Ives' songs. DeGaetani's ability to navigate this tricky terrain in a way that lets the music come through without distracting us with "wow that sounds HARD" is one of the best things about it. And she doesn't get too "classical" with this most varied repertoire- a thing that easily spoils it. Plus, both musicians take an intelligent but instinct-first approach.

I teach vocal music at a university and use this recording to introduce students to Ives' songs. I believe they then have the best chance of enjoying them. By the way, it's sad that we have to INTRODUCE them to Ive's music. To my mind he is still the finest composer America has produced. Admittedly, Ives is not something you want to listen to casually of a weekend afternoon. He still requires you to "stand up and take a dissonance like a man!"

There I was recently, in a recording studio with a small but select number of Ives experts. (I was just an invited guest, hardly an expert.) We were spending the day listening to tapes of an Ives centennial celebration concert whose 30th anniversary, coincidentally, just happens to be today, August 17.

Of the works performed in that concert, I was quite taken by the soprano's rendition of "Memories," a 2-part song Ives wrote in 1897 while a Yale undergraduate. I thought it a "magic" moment when, in the first ("Very Pleasant") part of the song, one can bust one's gut laughing, while, in the second ("Rather Sad") part, the soprano had the seeming ability to "rip your heart out"with her ability to capture a sense of nostalgia.

Noted Ives scholar and biographer Jan Swafford describes these two songs as typical of the "Victorian parlor songs" of their era, after the model set by Stephen Foster. Stuart Feder, another Ives scholar and biographer, suggests, in his "The Live of Charles Ives," that the "rather sad" part might allude to Ives's mother. But it is a fact that Ives had barely recovered from the shock of his father's death that had sent him reeling just a few years before. Speaking strictly for myself, I can envision the image of George Edward Ives in the words

"I can see him shuffling down
"To the barn or to the town
"A-humming."

So, perhaps in light of that "read" of mine regarding George Edward Ives, my reaction is understandable. And the soprano's rendition was indeed superb. Regardless, and in any event, one of the Ives experts present at the session said to me, "Aren't you forgetting Jan DeGaetani's recording of the song?"

Well, d'oh! Sure enough, I had forgotten about it. For all the many months I've had this album listed as one of the "essential" Ives recordings, I've managed to fail to comment on it beyond a brief Listmania description. So it's not inappropriate that I use the 30th anniversary of the above-noted Ives concert as a "take-off" for finally commenting on what is unquestionably the finest album of Ives songs ever.

Jan DeGaetani had an illustrious career (regrettably cut short by an all-too-early death from leukemia). A singer of great versatility who essayed works from John Dowland to George Crumb, including a personal favorite that includes song cycles by Hector Berlioz and Gustav Mahler, she will nonetheless always be identified with the songs of Charles Ives, thanks to this album.

This collection contains as wide a variety of Ives songs over his song-writing career as one could imagine in a single-CD album, from the early "The Circus Band" (1894) to "In the Mornin'" (1929, Ives's final essay in the genre).

A few of the songs ("The Housatonic at Stockbridge" [1921], "The Cage" [1906]) represent "Ives the recycler" at his best; they are vocal settings of larger-scale works that Ives had originally written for chamber (or theater) orchestra forces. In fact, "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" (from "Three Places in New England") is a tour de force for vocalist and pianist, endeavoring as it does to capture the impressionism of the orchestral version. DeGaetani and Gilbert Kalish, her superb accompanist who has performed many Ives keyboard works on his own, do indeed turn in a bravura performance in this difficult-to-capture sense of impressionism.

Elsewhere, DeGaetani makes the singing of songs that are by turns atonal, full of awkward interval leaps and of difficult meters seem like child's play, with totally secure vocal technique and intonation. And she perfectly captures the sentimentality of the "easier" songs that, in the hands of a lesser artist, would come across as "vocal marginalia." There is little of Ives that I consider to be such marginalia; it is simply a matter of infusing the songs with the spirit that Ives had endowed them with. And DeGaetani nails every one of them.

Which brings me full circle to "Memories." DeGaetani, like the unnamed soloist of 30 years ago today who reminded me that I had this unfinished business to attend to, will make you laugh until you bust a gut. And then she'll rip your heart out. Just as I believe these two song parts were meant to do.

Needless to say, a keeper!

Bob Zeidler

An excellent collection of Ives' most popular songs, performed by the master Jan DeGaetani. I think this music is extremely accessible for even non-fans of Ives, and I highly recommend this recording for its thoughtfulness and elan.

Wonderful. I could give many technical and musical reasons why this recording is so good but . . . These songs are amongst the best of Ives' works and this presentation is a benchmark in quality.

Like Schubert and Schumann, Ives chose to set the words of fine poets to music -- music of real distinction. Fischer-Dieskau recorded an lp of Ives' songs years ago, but I don't think DG has reissued it. Meanwhile, this is an excellent collection of very approachable Ives. Fischer-Dieskau or not, I wouldn't be without this cd. DeGaetani-Kalish are unbeatable in this music.

Every single other recording of any Charles Ives song that I've ever heard has the singer going full prima donna, with too much vibrato and drowning out the piano. With Charles Ives, they aren't so much songs as duets, and if the piano is made secondary, you're likely to miss half of the song. This album isn't like that. Gilbert Kalish stands out just fine and sounds fantastic, and Jan de Gaetani, unlike most singers, understood what Charles Ives meant when he said that all great music has an amount of self-restraint. Everyone should get themselves a copy of this - maybe two in case the dog eats one of them.

I bought this on vinyl before the advent of CD's It was wonderful then. It still is.

For years I was fascinated with the legend (eccentric, brilliant, rich, cantankerous, possibly crazy) of Charles Ives, but I found his music a little elusive. I admired it but never felt much connection. Until I bought this recording and finally "got" Ives.

Other reviewers go into admirable detail and explain just why this disc is so good. I agree with all of them and say that if you have any interest in this great American composer you should check this one out.