Of the masterpieces of American classical music, among the least appreciated and least performed is Three Places in New England by Charles Ives. There is an obvious reason: the piece fails in live performance unless it’s contextualized. In particular, the first movement – “The 'St. Gaudens' in Boston Common” – makes little impression unless an audience gleans its … [Read more...] about A Revelatory Visual Rendering of an American Musical Masterpiece
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The Downfall of Classical Music
If you’re in the mood for a rollicking conversation about the downfall of classical music in the US, check out this podcast conversation I recently had with the terrific conductor Kenneth Woods (who’s based in the UK rather than the US, in which he deserves a music directorship of consequence). My favorite sentence: “Those chickens that are now coming home to … [Read more...] about The Downfall of Classical Music
“The Housatonic at Stockbridge” — Ives’s Four-Minute Masterpiece Extolling the Sublime
This weekend’s “Wall Street Journal” includes a piece of mine reading Charles Ives’s four-minute masterpiece “The Housatonic at Stockbridge.” Composed in the 1910s, it’s both an orchestral work and a song. No other American composition known to me so bears comparison with the famous Nature reveries of Beethoven, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. My essay reads in part: Ives was a … [Read more...] about “The Housatonic at Stockbridge” — Ives’s Four-Minute Masterpiece Extolling the Sublime
Charles Ives and National Understanding
Charles Ives, 150 years old, is immensely important right now. Why is that? What’s changed? For the Ives Sesquicentenary festivals currently sponsored by the NEH Music Unwound consortium, The American Scholar has published an extraordinary online Program Companion. In addition to my essay on Ives and Mahler, it features contributions by a leading American art historian, a … [Read more...] about Charles Ives and National Understanding
Ives and Schoenberg Turn 150 — and the Road Not Taken
Charles Ives and Arnold Schoenberg, both of whom turn 150 years old this year, are the most important composers of their generation produced by Austro/Germany and the US. Though Ives was said by some to “know his Schoenberg,” he plausibly denied it. Schoenberg, however, paid sufficient attention to Ives to have written a magnificent encomium: “There is a great man living … [Read more...] about Ives and Schoenberg Turn 150 — and the Road Not Taken