Customer Reviews

Ives: An American Journey

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Michael Tilson Thomas makes a welcome move to RCA in his newest serving of Charles Ives. Hitherto, his best known Ives recording have all been on Sony. While excellent all in performance the sound quality was substandard (as is Sony's wont). In this we have some exquisite and fairly obscure Ives pieces. The rousing "General William Booth Enters into Heavan" is alone worth the price. Ives is manly known to listeners as a composer of disonant orchestral works. This only gives us a limited perspective of an artist who was as diverse in sentiment as he was in invention. The small and delightful songs on this disc will expand our awareness of one who is probably our greatest composer.

Charles Ives' music was so ahead of his time when it was written that he became known to the public as an eccentric whose music was only of academic importance, hardly listenable, rarely worth programming. But it has taken the likes of Michael Tilson Thomas to place Ives in the roster of American Genius Composers where he so justly belongs. This new recording (live recording in Davies Hall in San Francisco) has a brilliant sound that adds to the magnificence of the larger Ives orchestral works (this must surely be the finest sounding "Three Places in New England" and "The Unanswered Question" available). But the joy of this particular collection of Ives' output is the inclusion of the whimsy and raucous songs both with piano (Thomas) and orchestral accompaniment. Thomas Hampson is the grateful choice for the songs and he sings with an abandon apropos of the texts. The San Franciso Symphony and Chorus are in top form as is Thomas. This recording is such a joy that it pleads the case for capturing live recording over studio dry redubs. A tribute to all involved - especially Ives!

Tilson Thomas's PR team should put out a ocntract on me; I rarely express enthusiasm for him. So let me bow especially low to this superlative 1999 concert of Ives as viewed from his most melodic, least revolutionary perspective. This is Ives as recording angel of ice cream socials and Fourth of July parades.

In the Seventies MTT made good but not exceptioanl recordings of Ives's major orchestral works. Here he concentrates on songs and orchestral bits and pieces, except for the extended Three Places in New England, which is x-rayed with exceptionally detailed sonics. Thomas Hampson secures his position as the best singer of American songs with highly dramatized, unbuttoned singing--his Charlie Rutlage, a Texas-accented elegy for a fallen cowpoke, and the familiar General William Booth Enters Into Heaven are instant classics. Chorus and orchestra enter in the spirit of bumptious good cheer, and overall a good time was had by all, even though the crowd was sent home sobered up by the supernaturally melancholy Unanswered Question, which never fails to send a shiver through the listener.

This is a fascinating overview over the range and variety of the by all means unconventional music of Charles Ives. It's perhaps no surprise that Michael Tilson Thomas should prove such an excellent advocate of it, but he does and if any reader should for some reason be unfamiliar with the music of Ives I cannot think of a better place to start than this disc (unless you really want to start with the symphonies). The selection of works mixes the familiar with the unfamiliar and digs out some treasures, and everything is given committed performances and excellent sound quality.

Among the more familiar items, Three Places in New England is perhaps particularly convincingly done, as colorful and moving as I've ever heard it (and using a chorus in the third movement, which is the only right thing to do) - but here competition is pretty steep as well (e.g. Dohnanyi); something similar can be said for the haunting The Unanswered Question. As for the other, less well-known music, it is sure to provide insights into Ives's compositional outlook (as well as enjoyment in itself). The selection here makes it very apparent, for instance, how big a role childhood nostalgia and reminiscences from his youth played as a foundation for his music - almost all the pieces here incorporate elements from or reminiscences of musical impressions from various stages of Ives's life (reworked and arranged into Ives's strikingly original idiom).

The disc opens with From the Steeples and the Mountains, a purely avantgarde soundscape from 1901, scored for brass and bells and sounding more like a 1960s experiment in sonorities than anything else, were it not for the obvious Americana at its very core. It launches the almost painfully nostalgic `The Things our Fathers Loved' for tenor and piano (where Hampson might sound, possibly, a little self-conscious), the glittering choral and orchestral `The Pond' juxtaposed with the humorous and kaleidoscopically colorful Memories and the hilariously over-the-top cowboy song `Charlie Rutlage'.

A particularly impressive item is `The Circus Band', where - for once - the performance (and not the least the recording) really manages to capture the dazzling array of details and minute color shifts and nuances. I've already mentioned `Three Places', and these are effectively contrasted with the bleaker reminiscences of war starting with an effective rendition of `In Flanders Fields'. `They are There' pulls another typical Ives trick - catchy and effective but leaving you with a feeling of something much more profound (not only because of the text, I think). `Tom sails away' might not be Ives's best song, but it proves an extremely effective contrast with the stirring Fugue from his Fourth Symphony.

Ives's original and effective psalm settings are represented here by a very fine performance of Psalm 100. The striking solo song Serenity is also a notable item, and there is perhaps a possible objection to this recording that such a deceptively unspectacular gem is in danger of floating by unnoticed given the spectacle of the surrounding music (appreciating it requires a certain change of gears on the part of the listener). `General William Booth enters into heaven' for chorus, baritone solo and orchestra belongs among the more familiar items, and it receives a strong performance here - and not the least a superb recording which truly manages to realize the dizzying power and spectacle of that piece, and the familiar `The Unanswered Question' provides an effective, open conclusion.

In short, this is a well-planned and well executed, comprehensive survey of Ives's music, always in excellent performances and generally superb sound. This is, then, a thoroughly recommended disc, perhaps even a classic.

Charles Ives has always been a puzzle to me. From time to time I have listened to his music with a complete lack of resolution. Did I actually like it? Is it just an American marketing phenomena? Would we hear as much of him if he were, say, an Australian composer? I am still totally uncertain, but I love this CD for its variety of styles, variety of forces and general good humour. If you are immediately dismissive of Ives, can I suggest you start with the two songs called 'Memories'? Have a listen to this CD with an open mind - you may not like it all - even most of it - but one thing is certain and that is that this is not run-of-the-mill music.

This collection of Ives compositions is exceptional. This CD makes for very good listening. I play it when I am alone in the car. The pensive music realy captures the mood of time.

I grew up on movie soundtracks and scores from the likes of Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alex North and others. We have lost many of these composers but not their music they have left us through the years. That's a gift to all of us. I have been slowly looking at "20th century" composers from the "classical" arena to enhance my listening pleasure and my nature or "quest" to always seek out music that I am certain I must have passed over. I discovered Charles Ives after reading up further on Aaron Copland and his foray into many diverse areas of musical composition. One door opens another. Ives' name and compositions seem to have come up frequently. So far Charles Ives' music doesn't have the melodic quality of Copland or many contemporaries yet it does seem to have roots resulting in American musical motifs very strangely orchestrated resulting in some twisted profoundness. What attracts me is how Ives' music almost seems as if it were composed for film. Ives is Ives as I have found out. I enjoy this recording. It is strange, contemplative and definitely esoteric. Abrupt turns abound but that is the strength of Ives.

I was looking forward to this CD, there doesn't seem that much that is exciting about one of America's most innovative and intriguing musical minds. This CD didn't do it for me. I particularly did not care for the use of the chorus in the third movement of Three Places in New England. Too many fragments with little flow.....alas, someone else will need to fill this void and I don't think that it will be Michael Tilson Thomas.