‘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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Pierre says:

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

  • 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.

  • 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

  • drummerman says:

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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

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