“Dear Daddy” — What Kind of Man Was Charles Ives?

What kind of man was Charles Ives? Based on the testimony of those who knew and met him, I would say: a great man. And the greatest such testimonial was left by his daughter, Edie, in a letter she wrote to her father in 1942 on the occasion of his sixty-eighth birthday.

I discovered Edie’s letter thanks to Tom Owens’s Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives (2007). Edie’s tribute is so moving, so illuminating, that I instantly thought to create a concert/playlet around it. The result was “Charles Ives: A Life in Music,” at 50-minute presentation I have many times produced featuring William Sharp – a peerless exponent of Ives’s songs. We use those songs to tell the story of Ives’s life. When we get to Ives’s retirement from business and music – long years of precarious health — we arrive at Edie’s letter. It stuns audiences to tears.

For Ives’s 150^th birthday, October 20, WWFM – the most enterprising classical-music radio station I know – produced a two-hour Ives tribute that generously samples “Charles Ives: A Life in Music” as performed last September 30 to launch Indiana University’s nine-day, NEH-supported Ives Sesquicentenary festival. Edie’s letter was read by Caroline Goodwin – and you will find it about 70 minutes into the show. Here’s the text in part:

Dear Daddy,

You are so very modest and sweet Daddy, that I don’t think you realize the full import of the words people use about you, “A great man.” 

Daddy, I have had a chance to see so many men lately – fine fellows, and no doubt the cream of our generation. But I have never in all my life come across one who could measure up to the fine standard of life and living that you believe in, and that I have always seen you put into action no matter how many counts were against you. You have fire and imagination that is truly a divine spark, but to me the great thing is that never once have you tried to turn your gift to your own ends. Instead you have continually given to humanity right from your heart, asking nothing in return; — and all too often getting nothing. The thing that makes me happiest about your recognition today is to see the bread you have so generously cast upon most ungrateful waters, finally beginning to return to you. All that great love is flowing back to you at last. Don’t refuse it because it comes so late, Daddy. . . . 

And don’t ever feel you’ve been a burden to mother or me. You have been our mainstay, our guide and the sun of our world! We’ve leaned against you and turned to you for everything – and we have never been made to turn away empty-handed.

There follows an unforgettable performance of Ives’s song “Serenity,” with Bill Sharp accompanied by Steven Mayer, himself long an eminent Ives advocate. In fact, just before we get to Edie’s letter, we hear a stirring Steve Mayer performance of “The Alcotts,” from Ives’s Concord Piano Sonata.

The tail end of the WWFM show features excerpts from a prior Ives Sesquicentenary festival, at the Brevard Music Festival last July. First we hear the final pages of “Thoreau,” ending the Concord Sonata, performed by Michael Chertock – another astonishing reading.  Then we explore how Ives used Stephen Foster’s “Old Black Joe” (here sung by Paul Robeson) to eloquently express “sympathy for the slaves” in the finale of his Second Symphony – the rousing climax of which is performed by Brevard’s collegiate Sinfonia (one of three Brevard orchestras) led by Delta David Gier.  

The commentary, throughout, is by me, Bill McGlaughlin, J. Peter Burkholder, and two of the featured performers: Bill Sharp and Michael Chertock. It all happened thanks to WWFM’s David Osenberg, who possesses the energy and enterprise to do things differently. 

Here’s a Listening Guide (click here to access the two-hour WWFM show):

Sung by Charles Ives (1943):

“They Are There”

Sung by William Sharp accompanied by Steven Mayer:

“The Circus Band”

“Memories”

“Feldeinsamkeit” (as set both by Johannes Brahms and Ives)

“Remembrance”

“The Greatest Man”

“The Housatonic at So Stockbridge”

Performed by Steven Mayer:

“The Alcotts” from the Concord Sonata

Read by Caroline Goodwin:

“Dear Daddy”

Sung by William Sharp accompanied by Steven Mayer:

“Serenity”

Performed by Michael Chertock:

“Thoreau” (final pages) from the Concord Sonata

Sung by Paul Robeson:

“Old Black Joe”

Performed by Delta David Gier conducting the Brevard Sinfonia

Ives’s Symphony No. 2 (closing minutes)