Customer Reviews

Keeping Score- Ives: Holidays Symphony [Blu-ray]

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After my constant whining about Michael Tilson-Thomas' mannered and - at times - self indulgent Mahler, it's nice to have the opportunity to praise him for this outstanding contribution to our better understanding of America's greatest iconoclastic composer, Charles Ives. In fact, MTT removes that pigeon-holing label altogether, simply by presenting Ives in the most logical and straight-forward manner possible. Ives was a modernist before modernism ever became an "ism". Yet, he was highly sentimental; hoping that modern day successes wouldn't spoil the New England that he grew up in, and so dearly loved. Tilson Thomas covers these points superbly.

It seems to me that both Tilson Thomas and the S.F. Symphony are at their very best for these incredibly well produced "Keeping Score" docu-concerts. All of them are winners, with the Ives and Stravinsky (Rite Of Spring) leading the pack. Bernstein himself couldn't have done better on Ives. More, please! (how about Rimsky's "Mlada", a Tilson Thomas specialty).

For those who think that Ives' music is just a random set of notes played simultaneously for the sake of making noise, this DVD will dispell that belief. I've always loved Ives and was still amazed at the care he took to write this complicated music. I recommend this DVD with no reservations. It should leave you with no more unanswered questions.....

KEEPING SCORE by Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) and the San Francisco Symphony contains an elementary, picture-postcard narrative of Charles Ives' HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY, followed by a straight, non-narrated version of the same symphony.

In starting the disc, we find a 90 second montage showing musicians and MTT, where the announcer says, "What is the secret of classical music?" Then, we see a menu of 5 choices: (1) Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique; (2) Shostakovich's Symph. No. 5; (3) Beethoven's Eroica; (4) Stravinsky's rite of Spring; and (5) Copland's Appalachian Spring. Each of these choices provides a 10 minute excerpt from the other discs of this series. There is also the choice of going to the main menu.

The main menu includes these choices: (1) HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY with narration, film clips of marching bands, misty lakes, and snippets of Ives' biography; (2) The actual HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY without narration or photo-montages; (3) A short movie about the robotic cameras and video technicians; and (4) Setup (subtitles in English, Spanish, French, German, Cantonese, Mandarin).

This is about WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY (with narration): MTT tells us that "this is music that veers between tender sentiment and savage chaos." We are shown Ives' house in Redding, Connecticut and its interior. MTT sits inside and plays on Ives' old, beat-up piano. MTT exclaims, "Does he [Ives] want me to stand up and slug it out with him?!?" Then, we see a boy tossing a stone in a lake, and a girl walking on a railroad track in the countryside. We see Ives' childhood house in Danbury, Connecticut. Then, there is a reenactment of 2 actual marching bands, playing 2 different tunes, and then marching through each other (something that Charles Ives' father had experimented with). Then we see a misty lake, and we hear some calm music by Ives. Archival footage shows trolley cars and ticker tapes, where the narrative reiterates exactly the same message that in found in Rod Serling's A STOP AT WILLOUGHBY, one of the more famous episodes from TWILIGHT ZONE. In other words, the point of A STOP AT WILLOUGHBY is the same as one of Charles Ives' philosophies of composing (longing for a simpler, more innocent time).

After 10 minutes of this visual postcard, the symphony begins WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY (but with continued narration). Paul Brancato, violinist with the S.F. Symphony, leads a bluegrass band, playing tunes found in Ives' symphonies. Then, MTT shows us the musical score of the old tune, HOME SWEET HOME, and MTT plays an Ivesian version of HOME SWEET HOME on piano, and then the full orchestra plays the HOME SWEET HOME excerpt from WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. Then, we see a wind blowing over a snowy meadow, and then the film switches to a distinctive part of WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY (a part that is like wind blowing over a snowy meadow). (MTT is shamelessly programmatic, but that is okay, I guess.) MTT tells us about the musical "confrontational crunch" which sometimes occurs in the chaotic parts of Ives' music. After WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, we see film clips from Ives' college, Yale University, and MTT compares LEAVES OF GRASS by Walt Whitman with Ives' compositional philosophy (it has to do with childhood memories.)

Then, DECORATION DAY starts. MTT tells us that this holiday originated to memorialized the Civil War dead, and the film shows graveyards. MTT tells us that the opening notes of DECORATION DAY represent the loss of innocence of Americans, caused by the Civil War. MTT tells us that a large chunk of DECORATION DAY came from the Christmas song, COME ALL YE FAITHFUL (this is the most amazing thing I have learned in the past month). Then, MTT tells us about a tune in DECORATION DAY that represents the question, "Why do we exist?" It is the "why do we exist" tune; it is similar to a tune in UNANSWERED QUESTION. Kelly Leon-Pearce (violinist) tells about her part in DECORATION DAY, where she plays a sobbing violin. Glenn Fischthal (trumpet) tells about his part of playing "taps" in DECORATION DAY. Then, there are more archival film clips, more images of mists over lakes, and so on.

Then, the same cinematographic style is shown for the rest of the HOLIDAYS SYMPHONY, and finally comes the same symphony in its entirety, but without narration and without misty lakes. Overall, I would say that everything about this disc is perfect. MTT is generous in sharing the spotlight with several other musicians of the S.F.Symphony.

CONCLUSION. We know that plenty of tourists to America's most photogenic city (San Francisco) would think nothing about spending $25.00 on a little seafood dish over at Fisherman's Wharf (where all the tourists and pigeons seem to congregate). But in my opinion, the same money could be better spent on one of MTT's KEEPING SCORE discs, with enough change left over to purchase a loaf of fresh San Francisco-style sourdough French bread (in an open paper bag, NOT in a closed plastic bag).

MTT is the finest conductor of the music of American individualist Charles Ives. In fact, he always was, right from the beginning of his career, which was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra around 1970, when he recorded Ives's "Three Places in New England" and got high notices from critics about his way of clarifying the complex strands of the music, especially in the second movement's multiple marches. This new DVD goes even further beyond any of MTT's excellent cd recordings of Ives's Symphonies, etc. in its use of visuals, and superior DVD sound. (No doubt, the Blue Ray disc is even better).

We already know that he's an excellent and sometimes even an exciting teacher, so it should be no surprise that MTT clarifys the music and career of Ives in general, and of the Holidays Symphony in analysis and performance. The visual acting out of such examples of Ives's musical background as showing the results of his band-leader father's experiment of getting two bands to play different marches while marching towards one another, and then noting the resulting sound lets the viewer see exactly what infulenced Charles Ives the composer. There are other examples of the very effective use of visuals in this film, such as the innocence of the American, New England past presented in a simple, un-nostalgic way, which is very enjoyable to watch along with the music. These visuals clearly illustrate the words of Ives himself, which are effectively presented in voice-over, exactly complimenting the music of the "symphony" (if it really is one), and showing us Ives's house, his work-room, his piano, and selected photographs of Ives and his wife and of his town from different time periods, mostly from around 1888 to about 1930 clearly places the composer in his world and in his times. All this is important for our real understanding of why Ives became the type of man he was. He'd probably be closest to Eliot Carter if he were alive today, and he liked Carter when he was.


The performance of the Symphony is probably the best available, even slightly better than MTT's ten-or-so year old cd performance because of the better sound, but also because the orchestra is led by the same conductor, who was the best Ives conductor then, and is only better and wiser now, because not only do we hear all the complex strands of the music done better than anyone else, but we also feel the heart and mind of Ives the American, the man. He's us.