‘American music offers nothing better than Ives at his best’?

‘American music offers nothing better than Ives at his best’?

Orchestras

norman lebrecht

November 07, 2024

The headline is  taken from a New Yorker opinion by Alex Ross on the composer’s 150th birth anniversary.

We beg to disagree.

Ives has fallen out of favour in the 21st century, and justly so. The best of his works are cranky, the worst Ancient Mariner. Ives was a self-made multimillionnaire insurance agent who believed he discovered American music. But American music, before and after Ives, is more vital than any of the gimmicks Ives devised. Ives is a dead end, marginal and unrewarding. He is not the Great American anything, any more than the 47th P might be.

America has a richer abundance of musical invention.

Consider:

1 Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag

2 John Cage’s Concerto for prepared piano

3 Bernstein Candide Overture

4 Barber’s Adagio

5 Varese’s Ameriques

6 Steve Reich’s Different Trains

6 Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel

7 Amy Beach’s piano quintet

8 Copland’s 3rd symphony

9 Gershwin, Concerto in F

10 Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd

Comments

  • Moenkhaus says:

    I would add Nixon in China. Punches hard with it’s raw, vivid and visceral stew of politics, news, humanity and caricature as well uniquely American poetry and spirituality.

  • Sol L. Siegel says:

    Shame on you for comparing anyone to 45/47!

    (Not a bad list of American composers, though.)

  • Patrick says:

    Dissing Ives? What’s England’s excuse for the entire 19th century?

  • Edo says:

    Maybe I am missing something, is this a bad joke?

  • J Barcelo says:

    I was at the London Proms a number of years ago and the Ives 4th symphony was on the program. I have rarely been so utterly bored. Would it never end? And it was embarrassing, too. If you want to play music by Americans there’s far better works out there. Unfortunately, it’s not played by American orchestras since most of our music directors are stuck in the mode of playing the European classics over and over. Where are the symphonies of Randall Thompson, Walter Piston, Amy Beach, George Chadwick? I keep waiting for someone to dig out the orchestral works of Broadway arranger Robert Russell Bennett. But please, put the Ives away.

    • Dargomyzhsky says:

      Ives’ 4th is a masterpiece, though not easy either to play or to listen to. Why on earth would you be interested in those 4th raters(Piston is better, 2nd rate)?

    • MWnyc says:

      “most of our music directors are stuck in the mode of playing the European classics over and over. Where are the symphonies of Randall Thompson, Walter Piston, Amy Beach, George Chadwick?”

      Simple. They don’t sell tickets.

      • John Borstlap says:

        And why is that? Because ANY ‘contemporary piece’ on a program has become a red flag for something indigestible. Compare this with the musical climate in the first half of the 20th century: any premiere was looked forward to with anticipation and curiosity. Something ‘still unheard of’ sold tickets. The status of new music in concert life has reached a record low, and we know who or what are to blame: 1) a certain type of composers and 2) the commercialization of music life.

  • Herr Doktor says:

    While I agree with NL’s comments about Ives (not a fan), there’s one particularly sobering thing to consider. If we’re to be honest, if there were a ranking of all works on an international scale (meaning, including all works from everywhere), those American works would fall somewhere below Schubert’s 5th symphony, a wonderful piece for sure but not likely on anyone’s list of the top 100 classical works overall.

  • Mick the Knife says:

    And this is why we are in the era of post-periodical reading. At best journalists don’t believe what they write. At worst they are nitwits.

  • Drew Barnard says:

    What a cranky and vitriolic post. It’s impossible to say who the greatest American composer is, but this response is totally unnecessary.

  • Gerry Feinsteen says:

    Varese was so American that he titled this piece in English.

    Including John Cage as a serious composer? Swap his inclusion with Florence Price’s.

    See: John Williams.

    6 out of 10 of these composers knew/know some Yiddish.

  • Clarrieu says:

    …last time I checked, N.5 Varèse was a French composer…

  • David says:

    Sondheim – jeez, that’s scraping the barrel. As in fact are most of your suggestions.

    If by American music, you mean written by a born and bred American rather than simply written in America, it does rather limit the field – that’s why I would rather include the likes of Dvorak, Korngold, Schoenberg, etc. Born and schooled in Europe, where music thrived as a pinnacle of civilisation. Not a Disney soundtrack to your hamburger.

    • guest1847 says:

      While you are at it you can certainly mention more American stereotypes apart from hamburgers, like bald eagle per glazed donut

  • ethant says:

    Forget his pseudo musciology, first of all, Alex Ross is in on the joke:

    “hover behind Ives’s games and pranks … find a midnight comedy in it … a jam session that slides toward stupor”

    More important, Ross has a political agenda for elevating Ives, which he announces at the end of the article in no subtle terms:

    “in a blistering Ives song titled “Nov. 2, 1920,” which denounces the election of Warren G. Harding and the ascendancy of Republican laissez-faire economics. … The song’s text concludes in an ostensibly hopeful mood: “A heritage we’ve thrown away; but we’ll find it again.” The music, though, falls short of its implied C‑major triumph and trails off into silence. In the end, the most radical thing about Ives is his refusal of simple stories, his acceptance of uncertainty, his readiness for the unknown.”

    OK, we get it, we’re depressed, angry, bewildered too. But I don’t think listening to Ives helps me, in fact, it makes my headache worse.

    • Peter San Diego says:

      I’ll have to look up that song, and others; hitherto, I’ve only paid attention to Ives’s instrumental music.

  • Pierre says:

    I’d add in a couple standouts :
    George Crumbs Vox Balaneae
    John Adam’s Harmonielehrer
    Caroline Shaw’s string quartets

    • Peter San Diego says:

      I’d substitute your suggestions for the insipid Beach and Copland works; and for the utterly European Barber.

  • Stuart says:

    Clearly someone had an adverse reaction to the election outcome in the US. Seemingly your view of Ives is mixed up with a hint of TDS. Your argument doesn’t hold water and is certainly less well argued than the piece by Alex Ross. I love Barber, Copland and Gershwin, but treasure Ives. I don’t have to hold Ives up and tear others down as you do with Ives. And you weaken your argument by inclusion of some of your selections. To wit, Bernstein is a brilliant conductor and pianist but he is a second tier composer at best. Certainly his symphonies are a mess. May I offer my own list for consideration:

    • Symphony #1 (1898–1901)
    • Symphony #2 (1907–1909)
    • Symphony #3, The Camp Meeting (1908–10)
    • Symphony #4 (1912–18; rev. 1924–26)
    • Central Park in the Dark for chamber orchestra (1906, 1909)
    • The Unanswered Question for chamber group (1908; rev. 1934)
    • A Symphony: New England Holidays (1904–13)
    • “Robert Browning” Overture (1911–14)
    • Orchestral Set #1: Three Places in New England (1910–14; rev. 1929)
    • Orchestral Set #2 (1915–19)
    • String Quartet #1, From the Salvation Army (1897–1900)
    • String Quartet #2 (1913–15)
    • Violin Sonata #4, Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting (1911–16)
    • Piano Sonata #2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (1916–19)

    For recommended recordings, with the symphonies and other orchestral works, there are two American conductors who are closely associated with Ives performances, namely Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas. Both have recorded many of these works, often more than once. In addition to these recordings, the best set of Ives symphonies was recently recorded live by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel. It is essential listening.

    The string quartets, one an early work and the other more mature, are well served by a 1992 Emerson String Quartet recording which also includes the Samuel Barber string quartet (with its famous adagio).

    Ives’ four violin sonatas are relatively late works and the 4th is one of the best. Seek out the recording with Gregory Fulkerson and Robert Shannon.

    The 2nd piano sonata, Concord, Mass., 1840–60, is a challenging, thorny and difficult to interpret work that was first played publicly in 1939 in Cos Cob Connecticut (I once lived there). There are many fine recordings, including one by John Kirkpatrick who premiered the work. The one that I favor is played by the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Equally fine is a 2024 recording played by Donald Berman.

    • John Porter says:

      Add to that many of his song, The Concord Sonata, From The Steeples to The Mountains, Piano Trio, Piano Sonata No.1. Ask Phillip Glass, he will tell you that Ives is the father of American experimental music.

    • Herbie G says:

      Spot on, Stuart! Well said.

  • TPM says:

    I like almost everything Ives wrote, but the song “West London,” the choral entrance in “Thanksgiving and Forefather’s Day” from the Holidays Symphony, the entirety of Symphony No. 4, the Concord Sonata: These are pieces that I reach for when solace or strength or inspiration are required, the very opposite of “unrewarding.” This American’s life would be immensely poorer without them.

    I certainly enjoy many of the works on Mr. Lebrecht’s list, too, but I’m with Mr. Ross.

  • Larry W says:

    11 Bernstein, West Side Story
    12 Bernstein, Serenade
    13 Roy Harris, Sym. 3
    14 William Schuman, Sym. 3
    15 William Schuman, New England Triptych
    16 David Diamond, Rounds for String Orchestra
    17 Barber, Violin Concerto
    18 Barber, Second Essay for Orchestra
    19 Barber, Knoxville: Summer of 1915
    20 Ernest Bloch, Schelomo
    21 Jacob Druckman, Incenters
    22 Copland, Appalachian Spring
    23 Carlisle Floyd, Susannah
    24 Adams, Nixon in China
    25 Theofanidis, Rainbow Body

    • Gerry Feinsteen says:

      #20? Schelomo? It was completed before Bloch ever stepped foot in America.

      Again, 6 of these composers learned some level of Yiddish from grandparents.

      • Larry W says:

        Go ahead and knock the Bloch off. And your list is…..

      • Peter San Diego says:

        How has the grammatically incorrect “stepped foot” ever replaced “set foot”?! “Step” is an intransitive verb: one doesn’t step something; “set” is transitive: one sets something somewhere.

        Of course, this is already a lost battle, as are many others waged against the inexorable tide of ignorance.

    • Dargomyzhsky says:

      Some really terrible music in that list, there’s almost nothing worse than Barber’s embarrassing violin concerto, though the one for piano is really good.

    • Giustizia says:

      Hanson’s 2nd symphony. No.3 is too much a Sibelius clone (as is Walton’s 1st!) But the 2nd is a 20th century masterpiece. As are Ives’ 2nd and 3rd. His Yankee iconoclasm is truly American.

  • drummerman says:

    Any reason why you left out America’s greatest composer, Duke Ellington?

    • MWnyc says:

      Same reason they don’t include Bernstein or Sondheim or Rodgers and Hammerstein on lists of great jazz composers.

      It’s a list of classical (make that “classical”) works, and jazz is simply a different genre. Equally great, perhaps (opinions will differ), but different.

    • minacciosa says:

      Yes, because he is not America’s greatest composer. That doesn’t make him any less fantastic.

  • Tim Page says:

    I’ve never understood the Ives obsession, although I like a few of his works very much. The world is full of a number of things….

  • John Borstlap says:

    Nrs 1, 2, 5 & 10 reveal Mr Ross as a philistine.

    And why Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, that endless monotone meandering mourning mood? Coptic Light is so much better.

    Indeed Ives is overrated, and not a ‘great composer’, he never meant to fall into that category. But he was hailed as a counterpart of Schoenberg, and he experimented earlier than the Europeans with modernist techniques, out of an urge to fumble around with music.

    https://johnborstlap.com/why-ives-is-not-a-great-composer/

  • perturbo says:

    I beg to disagree with a number of your choices. I think that minimalism and “empty” stretches of quiet noises (e.g., Feldman) aren’t going to be listened to much longer. Ives wrote some fantastic pieces that offer much more to the listener than jaunty showtunes (Candide) and an overplayed lament (Barber Adagio). Give me Ives 4th Symphony and the Concord Sonata any day over most of these selections.

  • Retired Cellist says:

    I’m shocked to agree with NL on something. Ives was certainly an original thinker but I have always thought that at least some of his music is more interesting on paper than in performance. To me, particularly in his orchestral music, he often comes across as simply chaotic for the sake of it, and lacking in focus and in clarity of texture. Some of his works just contain too many notes, and too many of them don’t seem to have any good reason for being there apart from filling up available space. I think he is at his best in his songs, where he is required to put clarity of the text first by writing in a more succinct and ultimately less cluttered way.

    • William Ward says:

      I concur completely about Ives’s songs. “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven” is an all time favorite, and they’re all distinctive and superior to much dreary German lieder. As for his orchestral works, I listened to his Symphony No. 4 once and retired it permanently. Others I can take or leave.
      But American music has many gems that deserve repeated hearing, rather than flavors du jour like Florence Price, a DEI joke whom I rank with Florence Foster Jenkins.

  • Meal says:

    In my youth I listened to John Cage’s ‘Prepared piano’ with interest (No. 2 on the list). But the ‘interesting’ effect is not sustainable. I no longer listen to it voluntarily these days.
    In contrast: Whenever I have the opportunity to hear Ives’ ‘The unanswered question’ live, I try to take it. Occasionally I also put on the corresponding CD. There are several other works of Ives I really like to listen to. From an European perspective he is an underrated composer.

  • Sam's Hot Car Lot says:

    Three more worth mentioning:

    1. Copland’s Billy the Kid suite.

    2. Ellington’s River suite.

    3. Bernard Herrmann’s Echoes quartet.

  • Robert says:

    I often see Ives referred to as a “pioneer,” but pioneers blaze trails that others find advantageous to follow.

    Ives is more like the guy who retreats to a cabin in the woods, off-the-grid, to work on his 1000 page manifesto.

    I think Ives’ acclaim in the mid 20th Century is part due to critics’ hawking of the “neglected artist” myth and their desire to find one.

    And also part due to his conventional Yale education legitimizing him in their ears, much like art critics would point to Picasso’s early very representational work, before he went cubist and abstract, as argument that his later stuff was still the work of a real artist.

  • Tom Moore says:

    Nope, I agree with Ross. Examples: the two piano sonatas. First-rate.

  • John McLaughlin Williams says:

    That line sounds as if it was written by a European and it is demonstrably untrue. While most will disagree with the above list (it’s inevitable that there will be disagreement with any list), it is simple enough for all to produce their own. Without doubt, there’ll be items in proffered lists with which others will be unfamiliar and even unknown. The joy is in the discovery. Have at it.

  • John Kelly says:

    Well I don’t agree. Ives’ best works are tremendous fun and in the case of the 4th Symphony among the finest of American contributions to music. 3 Places in New England is a superb piece.
    The list for consideration contains a great deal of less than great music and in some cases these are very short pieces. Was Varese American? I think not. May I suggest a better list? Harris 3rd Symphony, Bernstein Age of Anxiety, Knoxville, Summer of 1915 (Barber), Violin Concerto (Barber), Harmonielehre (Adams) Mysterious Mountain (Hovhaness) and I am sure there are many others that belong on the list. Still, if you want short pieces – El Salon Mexico, Stars and Stripes Forever, Eagles (Rorem). Sweeney Todd or West Side Story? The latter I think.

  • John R. says:

    His stuff was always slapdash and clumsy but his claim to fame was that this obscure figure in isolation was trodding new harmonic grounds, etc. a decade before Schoenberg, etc. But then Maynard Solomon showed that he backdated his compositions. At that point he went from being a prescient oracle to just another derivative hack and a profoundly dishonest one at that. His works are seldom performed and even that’s probably too much. Good riddance.

    • John Borstlap says:

      Indeed Ives appears to have predated his ‘inventions’. Probably he has read about Schoenberg, because performances in the US were nonexistent in the early days (as far as I know). It was the ‘kick’ of being avantgarde, progressive, ‘groundbreaking’ etc. etc. that for ‘progressives’ was far more important than actual artistic quality or even musical interest. It all falls within the primitive obsession with wrapping paper instead of content. Hence the pedestallisation of Ives in the sixties – America had its own ‘Schoenberg’. And even Schoenberg himself, at the end of his life, expressed his admiration of Ives’ work, probably because he thought that could boost his own reputation that never led to acceptance in concert life.

  • Tom Varley says:

    Sorry to disagree, Norman, but I would rank Ives higher than you do and am more likely to listen to Ives’ 3rd Symphony than Copland’s, which I find to be a bit bombastic. I’ll also put on Ives 2nd Symphony when I want something fun.

    I think the quotations of hymns and patriotic songs may not travel well but they resonate for those who heard these tunes years ago. Some of what he wrote is “cranky” but some of the visionary pieces for chamber orchestra, that can be found on the “Calcium Light Nights” LP Columbia issued in the 70s and that is included in the recent RCA and Columbia Anthology CD set, are well worth hearing.

  • Joel Kemelhor says:

    I would say that the songs of Charles Ives are his best work. And they are truly “American” music, because on recordings non-native performers (for example, Fischer-Dieskau ) don’t sing them well.

  • GlenG says:

    Couldn’t agree more. Gimmickry posing as originality.

  • Finboo says:

    And let us not overlook Ton Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina.”

  • Keith Barnes says:

    Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Joan Baez, Carole King, Nina Simone, Billy Holliday, Bessie Smith, Paul Simon, Carly Simon

  • Michael Coolen says:

    As foolish an exercise as asking who the greatest pianist was/is or similar questions.

  • Pete TAYLOR says:

    Ives’ 1st and 2nd Piano Sonatas – aren’t they enough?

  • Vovka Ashkenazy says:

    What about Lowell Liebermann?

  • John McLaughlin Williams says:

    I knew this would be a fun thread.

  • Nathaniel Rosen says:

    Hey there Brit! Stay out of American politics or we will make you sit through a Cardi B concert.

  • Graham says:

    Oh dear! No mention of Walter Piston! Copland’s 3rd symphony is pretty dire, but he got famous for his light works. The mid century composers are ignored. A shame.

  • Douglas says:

    Steve Reich’s iconic piece is Music for 18 Musicians

    • John Borstlap says:

      Yes, but when you have heard it once, you know you don’t want to repeat the experience – because that was already composed in the piece itself.

  • Bruys says:

    We are by no means unanimous in this assessment. While not slighting the broad range of fine American music, Charles Ives is one of the greats, and I much prefer his music to some of the items on this list.

  • Paul Capon says:

    In many ways, Charles Ives music is is the most reflective of the US today. We hear multiple voices, sometimes seeming working against – or shouting – at each other. He draws on many musical traditions and then he throws it into the pot together. While some composers (ie: Antonín Dvořák in the NW Symphony) come up with unified structures, Ives view is divided, uncertain, with little resolution.

    • John Borstlap says:

      It is like throwing into a pan as many ingredients as one can possibly find but then abstains from actually cooking it.

  • Heather O’Donnell says:

    There’s no need to play the ranking game. Those who love Ives, love him. I count myself passionately as one. Others don’t love him and that’s also ok. Ives was compelled to write the music that was in his head. He found a brilliant way to accommodate that creative urge through his ‘day job’. He could have become a robber baron, but chose to always be a salaried employee of his company, channeling profits back into the company and his own wealth into many charitable causes. At the very least, if we had more people in the world honing their creative impulses into such generous creative expressions, the world would be better. Let Ives be Ives.

  • John says:

    Ives is music mostly tops your list in my opinion. Not sure what I hate is from. Perhaps some not very American Americans don’t know the tunes quoted in his pieces.

  • La plus belle voix says:

    Carl Ruggles. Sun-treader (!)

  • MWnyc says:

    Not a bad list of choices at all!

    However, Reich’s Different Trains has not held up well, imho, and I would replace it on the list with Tehillim, which is still glorious when it gets a confident performance. (It’s harder than it sounds.)

    • Save the MET says:

      Reich’s “Trains” could be the single most annoying piece of classical music ever written.

    • Saxon Broken says:

      I like “Different Trains”. I still listen to it sometimes, and certainly more often than anything else hi wrote.

  • Murray Citron says:

    Bernstein’s Candide Overture but not the whole piece? Typical of the partially-educated music critic.

  • Ich bin Ereignis says:

    American music at its best is probably found in jazz, actually. Very few classical composers can match the originality and inventiveness of artists such as Pat Metheny, Miles Davis, or Keith Jarrett.
    But why the need to classify? I love Ives but very much enjoy Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, and Roy Harris — an extremely underrated composer in my opinion. Anyways, I find these grand pronouncements as to who allegedly might be “the best” in American music, coming from people who somehow make a living through the sterile and intellectually vacuous enterprise of their pretentious rhetoric — and who probably have mediocre ears, at best — to be quite insufferable.

    • Bill Ecker says:

      Miles Davis barely wrote a note arrangers and composers did the creative heavy lifting. Gil Evans wrote his best and being the generous sort either gave him composer credit and humbly took the arrangement credit, or shared composer credit on almost everything original Davis did from the late ’50’s to the early ’60’s. A rare exception was Solea the only original work from scratch on “Sketches of Spain” which Gil added the Carmen trumpet voluntary at the start. Gil was the composition and arranger genius, Davis was the genius performer.

  • Welby says:

    Oh come on. Go listen to Ives’ “Three Places in New England” and tell us that’s not the work of a great composer.

  • Denise Brain says:

    One’s musical judgments are formed by one’s musical tastes, but to say that such pleasant-but-noninfluential works as pieces 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7-10 are better than Ives’ music is like saying that the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” – again, a good song, nothing wrong with it on its own level – is better music than “Gen. William Booth Enters Into Heaven.” It may be your opinion, but it isn’t so.

    I’ve recently been listening to as much recorded Ives as I can find, among them such offbeat pieces as the “Fugue in Four Keys,” “Chromatimelodtune,” the “Emerson Concerto” and even four “ragtime dances” which combined ragtime rhythms with bitonality and melodic lines that sound like Gershwin…except that they were written in the 1890s. He was not only far ahead of his time but so diverse in his musical styles that you couldn’t pin him down, and much of this music still sounds completely modern today. But of course the problem is that most of it is so far “out there” that most listeners are only familiar with his more popular works.

    My point is that even if YOU don’t know all his works and how many different styles he had, I’ll bet you that whatever American composer you think was more influential was probably influenced by him. Ives was into everything: tone clusters, aleatoric music, overlaid musical lines in contrasting keys and rhythms, even 12-tone music (without knowing a note of Schoenberg at the time). Even someone as far-out as Harry Partch with his quarter-tone keyboards was an extension of Ives’ experiments. There is not a modern-day American composer who doesn’t owe something to Ives directly or indirectly, and that is not just my opinion. Listen to all of his music before passing judgment on his influence. Even The Unanswered Question was so far ahead of its time that there aren’t many modern pieces that even attempt to duplicate its effects.

    • John Borstlap says:

      I agree that it’s about behing progressive! I never understood why people want to stay stuck, let alone why they want to hear the same old stuff over and over again. I don’t know that guy Ifes but he must be a great artist to have influenced so many other progressives! I always tried to be forward looking and be first at something. My own versions of spelling however are never accepted because people are so conservative, but when in a train I always make sure I’ve a seat at the very front so that I will arrive first and that is the main thing.

      Sally

  • Chris says:

    Big fan of Ives but I must admit that American musical education and culture have moved on and left him behind. When 99.9% of your audience don’t know even the refrains to “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” or “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” then something like the Fourth Symphony will appear as nothing but an ill-tuned piano and a wall of disorganized sound.

  • Save the MET says:

    Adams “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” is the most performed work by a living classical composer internationally.

  • SimonPeter says:

    I agree entirely. I have a tiny, imperceptible soft spot for the third movement of his piano sonata, The Alcotts. But breath deeply and it would vanish.
    His ouvre all pales into barely a shadow compared to almost every American composer of the 20th century. Everything you have listed I know well and love.
    I delved deep into his songs, after two days, Schoenberg’s Op 11 piano pieces came as a welcome relief, almost like sunshine.

    • John Borstlap says:

      To make Schoenberg’s opus 11 pieces have the effect of almost sunshine is the most damning damnation I could imagine.

  • Stuard Young says:

    Stephen Albert’s Cello Concerto; written for Yo Yo Ma, and as a requiem in memory of Albert’s Father.

  • Bobby Lime says:

    You see, this is why you lost the election and will keep on losing. You Leftists say we are totalitarian, and, of course, this is the projection we see in all sociopaths. It is you who are totalitarian. For you, everything must be mugged by politics. No privacy is allowed. There is no personhood, only utile human supply for The Grand Project, which you lunatics yourselves have no clear vision of.

    You know only one thing: you’re all about destruction. That is why there has never been a great or even good artist who has been a genuine Leftist. ( I use “Leftist” in opposition to the sane and honorable thing which liberalism was. ) As the great literary critic, Edmund Wilson, put it, politics is unattractive to people who have the quality of intelligence necessary to write poetry.

    If you and your kind are nursing plots to hit the streets in the next few months, my vehement advice is that you choke them off right now. Tuesday proved that the American people return your hatred zestfully. We really have had enough of you. As that vile oaf, Walz, proved, your side isn’t all that at home with arms. You are not going to like what happens to you if you attempt a wintertime reprise of The Summer of Floyd. True, Trump was president that year, but you must remember that trash him though you may, he’s a brilliant politician who recognized that the America of four years ago would likely not have been sanguine about the use of the military to deal with rioters.

    However, you deranged bullies have had an additional four years to run the table with your assorted madnesses. Tuesday showed that in the opinion of most of your fellow Americans toward you, my, the worm has turned! I regret that having been disabled by a war injury, I wouldn’t be available to provide the sort of admirable auxiliary help which American civilians historically have in such crises. Better stay away from my door, however.

    One last thing: go f*ck yourself.

  • Dennis says:

    Ives’ psalm settings for choir are really wonderful.

  • La plus belle voix says:

    Christoper Rouse. Fine tone poems.

  • Jeff Courtright says:

    Right on!

  • Kevin O'Connell says:

    I think this is a bit severe. A lot of Ives’s music is dire, I agree. But he shared this hit or miss quality with a lot of pioneers. Think of Whitman who when he is not the best poet the US has had is by a good measure the worst. The Concorde Sonata was a big piece for me when I was young. But I admit it’s the one piece I still much listen to.

  • ArsMusica says:

    I am surprised there as been no mention of two of America’s best composers of the last 50 years: John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse. Both of them infinitely superior to Ives.

  • Tom Varley says:

    And then there’s Carl Ruggles… There was a big effort in the 70s to tout Ruggles as Ives’ equal and his music was championed by Michael Tilson Thomas, among others, but it never really took hold. Thomas and the Buffalo Philharmonic made a complete set of Ruggles orchestral music that was issued in 1980 but CBS/Sony never transferred it to CD, although it seems to have been licensed to a specialist label around 2012. I don’t think I’ve played the LPs in 40 years.

    I have Thomas’s BSO recording of Sun Treader because it’s on the same CD as Piston’s 2nd Symphony and Ives Three Places in New England.

    • Stuart says:

      The Ruggles set was transfered to CD (2012?) and it is also available digitally on Spotify. I assume Apple Music has it as well. Treasured music. The BSO recording is on Spotify as well.

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