An Introduction to Charles Ives

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

In advance of Gilbert Kalish's performance of the "Concord" sonata on July 10th's Opening Night Concert, Yellow Barn invites you to learn more about Charles Ives by reading Jan Swafford's insightful biography of the composer:

Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954)

For all his singularity, the Yankee maverick Charles Ives is among the most representative of American artists. Optimistic, idealistic, fiercely democratic, he unified the voice of the American people with the forms and traditions of European classical music. The result, in his most far-reaching work, is like nothing ever imagined before him: music at once unique and as familiar as a tune whistled in childhood, music that can conjure up the pandemonium of a small-town Fourth of July or the quiet of a New England church, music of visionary spirituality built from the humblest materials--an old gospel hymn, a patriotic tune, a sentimental parlor song. The way in which Ives pursued his goal of a democratic art, and his career of creating at the highest level of ambition while making a fortune in the life insurance business, perhaps could only have happened in the United States. And perhaps only there could such an isolated, paradoxical figure make himself into a major artist.

Charles Ives was born in the small manufacturing town of Danbury, Connecticut, on October 20, 1874, two years before Brahms finished his First Symphony. During the Civil War his father George Ives had been the Union's youngest bandmaster, his band called the best in the army. When the war ended George had returned to Danbury to take up the unusual trade, in that business-oriented town, of musician.

As a cornet player, band director, theater orchestra leader, choir director, and teacher, George Ives became the most influential musician in the region. Yet while Danbury prided itself during the 1880s in being called "the most musical town in Connecticut" (that in large part due to George Ives's labors), people still viewed the profession with little understanding or respect. That situation, which would have been the same in most American towns in the 19th century, had its impact on Charles Ives. Still, his family was prominent, noted for extravagant personalities and (except for George) a gift for business.

like father, like son 
Ives told the story of his introduction to music: his father came home one day to find the five-year old banging out the Ives Band's drum parts on the piano, using his fists. George Ives's response gave the first impetus to his son's career as a musical innovator. Rather than saying, as would most parents, That's not how to play the piano, George observed instead, "It's all right to do that, Charles, if you know what you're doing," and sent the boy down the street for drum lessons. Charlie never did stop using his fists on the piano, and was eventually notorious for requiring a board to play the Concord Sonata. Thus the invention of what a later age would call "tone clusters."...

Read the complete biography