Day 13: Ives, Holiday Symphony
In the absence of any Schoenberg in my CD collection, I
thought I’d dust of my Charles Ives CD. Probably not the most common thing to
find in a collection, but it goes back to my university days when we studied
American music – Spirituals to Bob Dylan through Ives and Copeland and jazz!
The full title of this particular piece is A Symphony: New
England Holidays, and my recording was made by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
and Chorus, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. This is an interesting work: to
me it’s typical of the 20th century avant-garde movement – mostly
cacophonous, seemingly disorganised and written for a huge range of
instruments, including a set of bells, and a Jews harp.
In amongst all the dissonance, I could recognise quite a lot
of familiar tunes, each being played against another, for example, Battle
Hymn of the Republic and Yankee Doodle. Apparently, it took Ives nearly 16
years to write the complete symphony! Although it is a symphony, each movement
can also be played as a standalone piece of music.
Just in case you are thinking of giving this a go, I should
warn you it does take a bit of getting used to!
