Ives: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2

Featuring

Sir Andrew Davis
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Charles Ives

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Ives was happy for the movements of his 'New England Holidays' symphony to be performed in isolation, as he was suspicious of critics' assumptions about what a symphony ought to be.

Compositional Technique

Ives's 'Central Park in the Dark' and 'The Unanswered Question' were conceived as companion pieces, experimenting with layering disparate musical ideas.

Composition History

Many of Ives's large-scale compositions, including 'Three Places in New England', had complex histories that were only fully understood decades after his death through research by Yale scholar James B. Sinclair.

Compositional Technique

In 'Washington's Birthday', Ives used multiple Jew's harps, explaining that men at old barn dances played them 'more as a drum than as an instrument of tones'.

Interpretation

Sir Andrew Davis, the conductor, notes that performing Ives is problematic due to balance issues, such as a piano flute solo against a forte string section, and the difficulty of hearing the Jew's harp.

Compositional Technique

In 'The Unanswered Question', muted strings represent the 'blissfully ignorant silence of the Druids', while a solo trumpet poses the 'perennial question of existence', answered by a quartet of flutes.