Set of Pieces

Ives (Artist), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 19, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Polygram Records
• ASIN: B000001GLV
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,217 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #82 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Modern, 20th, & 21st Century > Composers > Ives, Charles

Track Listings

1. Three Places in New England: The 'Saint-Gaudens' In Boston Common

2. Three Places in New England: Putnams' Camp, Redding, Connecticut

3. Three Places in New England: The Housatonic at Stockbridge

4. The Unanswered Question

5. A Set Of Pieces: In The Cage

6. A Set Of Pieces: In The Inn

7. A Set Of Pieces: In The Night

8. Symphony No.3 'The Camp Meeting': Old Folks Gatherin'

9. Symphony No.3 'The Camp Meeting': Children's Day

10. Symphony No.3 'The Camp Meeting': Communion

11. Set No.1: The See'r

12. Set No.1: A Lecture (Tolerance)

13. Set No.1: The Ruined River (The New River)

14. Set No.1: Like a Sick Eagle

15. Set No.1: Calcium Light Night

16. Set No.1: Allegretto Sombreoso

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An "Orphic egg" laid, December 16, 2005

By 

David Gray Porter (Anaheim, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Set of Pieces (Audio CD)

Back in the '70s Decca put out a budget US label called "Orphic Egg." My title utilizes this as a pun for what Orpheus did with Ives's Set No. 1.

The person who advised Orpheus on this music did a really poor job. Never mind the HOWLER in the top Violin in an early-on measure in "The St. Gaudens" (A-sharp instead of A-natural -- WHOA!). I'm here to write about this version of Set No. 1: The See'r, A Lecture, The Ruined River, Like a Sick Eagle, Calcium Light Night, and Incantation.

First off I'll point out the most obvious blooper. The Solo horn part in Incantation is played in the wrong key! It is supposed to start on E-flat, but sounds a 5th lower on A-flat. The reason this happened is that the person who advised them didn't notice that in the score it says "actual sounds" above the Solo staff, but this note was omitted from the part (publisher's error). So the English Horn plays it as if it is a transposing part, and thus it sounds a 5th lower than it should be! All that needed to be done was to check the version for voice and piano -- but their advisor didn't bother to do that.

The versions of The See'r and Like a Sick Eagle are the ones made by Gunther Schuller for his Columbia LP. They're "all right" but Schuller based his scores solely on the old 1934 copyist scores that perpetuate significant if minor errors. This version of A Lecture is the one made by Gregg Smith for his second Columbia LP which also has minor errors and changes the Solo cornet to clarinet.

Now comes the true joke of the album (a sad joke poorly played on Orpheus): these versions of The Ruined River and Calcium Light Night are not just in critical error, at times they are just plain crazy! <g> The score used for CLN is almost funny for me to listen to --- wrong rhythms, sometimes bizzare rhythms, especially in the solo cornet part, and a few completely incorrect parts for the instruments. Reading an Ives sketch can be deceiving, and one shouldn't always rely on alignment of one part against another, or hastily-sketched fragments of parts duplicated by a later addition, but this is what was done when this score was made by the group's advisor. It doesn't even sound, to my ears, like a march anymore, and this piece is supposed to represent the members of Psi Upsilon and Delta Kappa Epsilon marching across the Old Yale Campus initiating new members and singing uproariously. They could have used Ken Singleton's score, which is a good score and appears on Jim Sinclair's Koch CD, but I hear it's unavailable. They might have even used the now-discredited Henry Cowell "arrangement" and done better, but they didn't!

Now I say all this because I have some inside information. I was commissioned to do a critical Ives Society edition of this Set in the 1980s, and Ensemble Modern used that edition in their now (unfortunately) out-of-print EMI CD. One day I was called up by the person advising Orpheus and asked if I would send them my edition, in score and parts, because this person thought it would be "wonderful" to have these pieces fill out the CD (in other words, I was sweet-talked into providing these materials). I did so, at my own expense and without asking for any remuneration. I checked with Orpheus a few days later and they had received my materials. Within a few minutes I was called back by the person who had asked for the materials and was seriously cussed out for daring to call Orpheus on my own. I was a little stunned. I was even more stunned when this CD came out with this travesty of an edition on it! (I also had a good laugh over how truly awful it was!)

I wrote Orpheus telling them how they had been taken in (my first use of the "Orphic egg" metaphor) but they didn't seem to care. It's their misfortune that they put their trust in someone who didn't merit it.

The CD has a wonderful rendition of Symphony No. 3 and the Theater Orchestra Set, and the other two movements of "Three Places." But don't buy it for Set No. 1! You can do better with Richard Bernas's "When the Moon" CD (even though he was made to use Cowell's score fof Calcium Light Night).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finest Ives Orchestral..., October 16, 2007

By 

Sébastien Melmoth (Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Set of Pieces (Audio CD)

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With the especially fine Hopper cover-art, this is an all-time favorite Ives orchestral disc. Particularly nice in the crisp Fall season.

Disc discontinued, but also reissued on Ives: Three Places in New England; Symphony no. 3; The Unanswered Question; A Set of Pieces; Set no. 1 with different cover-art.

Orpheus great here!
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5.0 out of 5 stars graceful engaging performances, May 31, 2010

By 

Robert A. Schultz (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Set of Pieces (Audio CD)

This is my favorite performance of Ives 3rd symphony. All the instruments articulate. Rest of the pieces are very good as well.