Ives: An American Journey

Michael Tilson Thomas (Artist), Charles Ives (Artist), San Francisco Symphony and Chorus (Artist), Thomas Hampson (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 5, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B00005UED6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,067 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #1 in	Music > Classical > Featured Performers, A-Z > ( S ) > San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
  #4 in	Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Modern, 20th, & 21st Century > Composers > Ives, Charles
  #4 in	Music > Classical > Featured Composers, A-Z > ( I ) > Ives, Charles

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Michael Tilson Thomas is an expert Ivesian. His 1970 recording debut was with Three Places in New England, still available from DG. Here, he redoes the work with the interpolation of a chorus singing the poem on which the last movement, "The Housatonic at Stockbridge," is based--unusual, not as effective as the orchestral version, but fascinating. Tilson Thomas cites Ives's desire for performers to creatively shape his music, and this disc vindicates his editorial liberties by making Ives's surprising music even more unpredictable. The choral contributions are fine, too, but baritone Thomas Hampson steals the show with seven songs that display his empathy with Ives's varied styles and the range of the composer's music, from cowboy songs to touching elegies. The way Hampson bellows a Brooklynese "Coytin" (for "Curtain") at the end of the first song of Memories is worth the price of purchase. Here's a disc to be entertained by, and moved as well. The recording was made at SFS concerts, and we're privileged to share the audience's experience. A must-have for Ivesians and the curious. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Something of a disappointment, January 11, 2004

By	Edward Wright (Toronto, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was very much looking forward to the latest Ives recording from Michael Tilson Thomas, whose reputation as an Ives specialist began with his first recording of the Three Pieces in New England, made in 1970 when the conductor was only in his mid-20s. That this disc came some way from living up to my expectations is perhaps due to a combination of over-optimism, uneven performances and what I feel is a less-than-ideal selection of works.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the opening of the disc: a fine performance of the craggy, dissonant brass and percussion work From the Steeples and the Mountains, a highly impressive miniature which swells from its dissonant opening to a climax where sound seems to echo off in all directions. However, I'm less convinced with the rest of the purely-orchestral program: this reading of Ives' classic Three Pieces of New England lacks a little of the gracious flowing lines of Tilsom Thomas' earlier 1970 recording; in addition the experiment of adding a recently-found choral part to the finale merely demonstrates how right the composer was to leave it out. For his extract from the Fourth Symphony, Tilson Thomas chooses the slow movement fugue. I am guessing this choice was to emphasise the "accessible Ives", but this is by far the weakest movement of the work (it was in fact arranged from the first movement of Ives' then 20-year-old First String Quartet), and even a good performance--as here--can't entirely hide up its conservative, almost academic writing. That perennial Ives classic The Unanswered Question, which closes the work, is an infinitely finer work, but unfortunately Tilson Thomas cannot match the transcendence of his own--distinctly slower--Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording from 1986.

The rest of the disc concentrates on various incarnations of Ives' bewildering variety of songs, and as a result comes into partial competition with what is to my mind one of the finest Ives discs around--a recording of selections from the songs and the sets for orchestra with Susan Narucki, Sanford Sylvan and Music/Projects London under Richard Bernas (if you're an Ives fan and don't have this disc, I suggest you rectify this immediately). The songs are extremely uneven in quality--ranging from trivial kitsch to outright masterpieces--and their styles vary just as much.

Most of these songs appear here in orchestral garb, but in three of them Tilson Thomas accompanies Thomas Hampson's baritone on the piano himself. The salon song The Things our Fathers Loved is one of the examples of irreparable kitsch, but rather better is the bipartite Memories which switches from camp to sentimental at its midpoint. In contrast, Tom Sails Away is one of Ives' finest songs, but in this recording its effect is compromised by Tilson Thomas' rather insensitive playing in the piano part.

The Pond (Remembrance)--another of Ives' finest songs--appears here in a version for women's chorus and orchestra. This transcendental homage to the composer's father is in fact much more subtle and rhythmically complex than it appears at first, and it has appeared in a bewildering variety of versions (three of which appear on the Bernas disc mentioned earlier). Similarly restrained in means is John Adams' careful baritone-and-orchestra version of the touching song Serenity: it's well-judged and well-sung here, and Adams avoids the pitfalls that David Del Tredici walks into in his entirely unnecessary orchestration of In Flanders Fields.

By contrast, Charlie Rutlage is an absurdly over-the-top piece of cowboy kitsch that disintegrates into violent discords as the words describe Charlie's death: this voice-and-orchestra version isn't half as good as Sanford Sylvan's voice-and-piano reading on the Bernas disc. Similarly eccentric is The Circus Band, a bizarrely outrageous confection for chorus and orchestra (based on an early orchestral march) that lacks some of the lustre of similar Ives effects. The bizarre Ives is also at work They are There! This near-hysterial rant (not actually as militaristic as it sounds at first) is heard in a chorus-and-orchestral version that lacks something of the sheer outrageousness of Ives' own voice-and-piano recording (even though Tilson Thomas takes an effort to try to copy the style of that reading).

The chorus-and-organ setting of Psalm 100 ("Make a joyful noise unto the Lord") is an intriguing piece of writing that well merits its exposure here, though it can't match General William Booth Enters Into Heaven for sheer unbuttoned craziness. This setting of Vachel Lindsay's poem, heard here in a version for baritone, chorus and orchestra is one of Ives' most endearing creations: its remarkable mix of modernism, bizarre wit and sentimentality, topped off with the sudden introduction of a hymn tune at the climax, is typical of the composer at his best. Unfortunately, this performance misses out on the last edge of hysterical ecstasy that is so necessary for the work to have its full impact (in my opinion it's easier to bring off in the voice-and-piano version).

I realise I am perhaps being overcritical of this disc, but it seems to me that a disc by such a fine Ivesian as Tilson Thomas should be held to a very high standrd. Though I was personally disappointed by this recording, it may well appeal to those who know little of the composer: however, I fear that Ives specialists are likely to be underwhelmed.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our View of the Ivesian Universe Expands, March 25, 2002

By	Benway (Placentia, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb sampling of a national treasure, April 17, 2002

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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!