Ives: An American Journey

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Michael Tilson Thomas is an expert Ivesian. His 1970 recording debut was with Three Places in New England, still available from DG. Here, he redoes the work with the interpolation of a chorus singing the poem on which the last movement, "The Housatonic at Stockbridge," is based--unusual, not as effective as the orchestral version, but fascinating. Tilson Thomas cites Ives's desire for performers to creatively shape his music, and this disc vindicates his editorial liberties by making Ives's surprising music even more unpredictable. The choral contributions are fine, too, but baritone Thomas Hampson steals the show with seven songs that display his empathy with Ives's varied styles and the range of the composer's music, from cowboy songs to touching elegies. The way Hampson bellows a Brooklynese "Coytin" (for "Curtain") at the end of the first song of Memories is worth the price of purchase. Here's a disc to be entertained by, and moved as well. The recording was made at SFS concerts, and we're privileged to share the audience's experience. A must-have for Ivesians and the curious. --Dan Davis

Tracks:

From The Steeples And The Mountains
The Things Our Fathers Loved
The Pond (Remembrance)
Memories
Charlie Rutlage
The Circus Band
The "St. Gaudens" In Boston Common
Putnam's Camp
The Housatonic At Stockbridge
In Flanders Fields
They Are There!
Tom Sails Away
Fugue From Symphony No. 4
Psalm 100
Serenity
General William Booth Enters Into Heaven
The Unanswered Question

Amazon.com

Michael Tilson Thomas is an expert Ivesian. His 1970 recording debut was with Three Places in New England, still available from DG. Here, he redoes the work with the interpolation of a chorus singing the poem on which the last movement, "The Housatonic at Stockbridge," is based--unusual, not as effective as the orchestral version, but fascinating. Tilson Thomas cites Ives's desire for performers to creatively shape his music, and this disc vindicates his editorial liberties by making Ives's surprising music even more unpredictable. The choral contributions are fine, too, but baritone Thomas Hampson steals the show with seven songs that display his empathy with Ives's varied styles and the range of the composer's music, from cowboy songs to touching elegies. The way Hampson bellows a Brooklynese "Coytin" (for "Curtain") at the end of the first song of Memories is worth the price of purchase. Here's a disc to be entertained by, and moved as well. The recording was made at SFS concerts, and we're privileged to share the audience's experience. A must-have for Ivesians and the curious. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews:

A superb evening of Ives, the best in decades.......2005-12-18

Tilson Thomas's PR team should put out a ocntract on me; I rarely express enthusiasm for him. So let me bow especially low to this superlative 1999 concert of Ives as viewed from his most melodic, least revolutionary perspective. This is Ives as recording angel of ice cream socials and Fourth of July parades.

In the Seventies MTT made good but not exceptioanl recordings of Ives's major orchestral works. Here he concentrates on songs and orchestral bits and pieces, except for the extended Three Places in New England, which is x-rayed with exceptionally detailed sonics. Thomas Hampson secures his position as the best singer of American songs with highly dramatized, unbuttoned singing--his Charlie Rutlage, a Texas-accented elegy for a fallen cowpoke, and the familiar General William Booth Enters Into Heaven are instant classics. Chorus and orchestra enter in the spirit of bumptious good cheer, and overall a good time was had by all, even though the crowd was sent home sobered up by the supernaturally melancholy Unanswered Question, which never fails to send a shiver through the listener.

Something of a disappointment.......2004-01-12

I was very much looking forward to the latest Ives recording from Michael Tilson Thomas, whose reputation as an Ives specialist began with his first recording of the Three Pieces in New England, made in 1970 when the conductor was only in his mid-20s. That this disc came some way from living up to my expectations is perhaps due to a combination of over-optimism, uneven performances and what I feel is a less-than-ideal selection of works.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the opening of the disc: a fine performance of the craggy, dissonant brass and percussion work From the Steeples and the Mountains, a highly impressive miniature which swells from its dissonant opening to a climax where sound seems to echo off in all directions. However, I'm less convinced with the rest of the purely-orchestral program: this reading of Ives' classic Three Pieces of New England lacks a little of the gracious flowing lines of Tilsom Thomas' earlier 1970 recording; in addition the experiment of adding a recently-found choral part to the finale merely demonstrates how right the composer was to leave it out. For his extract from the Fourth Symphony, Tilson Thomas chooses the slow movement fugue. I am guessing this choice was to emphasise the "accessible Ives", but this is by far the weakest movement of the work (it was in fact arranged from the first movement of Ives' then 20-year-old First String Quartet), and even a good performance--as here--can't entirely hide up its conservative, almost academic writing. That perennial Ives classic The Unanswered Question, which closes the work, is an infinitely finer work, but unfortunately Tilson Thomas cannot match the transcendence of his own--distinctly slower--Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording from 1986.

The rest of the disc concentrates on various incarnations of Ives' bewildering variety of songs, and as a result comes into partial competition with what is to my mind one of the finest Ives discs around--a recording of selections from the songs and the sets for orchestra with Susan Narucki, Sanford Sylvan and Music/Projects London under Richard Bernas (if you're an Ives fan and don't have this disc, I suggest you rectify this immediately). The songs are extremely uneven in quality--ranging from trivial kitsch to outright masterpieces--and their styles vary just as much.

Most of these songs appear here in orchestral garb, but in three of them Tilson Thomas accompanies Thomas Hampson's baritone on the piano himself. The salon song The Things our Fathers Loved is one of the examples of irreparable kitsch, but rather better is the bipartite Memories which switches from camp to sentimental at its midpoint. In contrast, Tom Sails Away is one of Ives' finest songs, but in this recording its effect is compromised by Tilson Thomas' rather insensitive playing in the piano part.

The Pond (Remembrance)--another of Ives' finest songs--appears here in a version for women's chorus and orchestra. This transcendental homage to the composer's father is in fact much more subtle and rhythmically complex than it appears at first, and it has appeared in a bewildering variety of versions (three of which appear on the Bernas disc mentioned earlier). Similarly restrained in means is John Adams' careful baritone-and-orchestra version of the touching song Serenity: it's well-judged and well-sung here, and Adams avoids the pitfalls that David Del Tredici walks into in his entirely unnecessary orchestration of In Flanders Fields.

By contrast, Charlie Rutlage is an absurdly over-the-top piece of cowboy kitsch that disintegrates into violent discords as the words describe Charlie's death: this voice-and-orchestra version isn't half as good as Sanford Sylvan's voice-and-piano reading on the Bernas disc. Similarly eccentric is The Circus Band, a bizarrely outrageous confection for chorus and orchestra (based on an early orchestral march) that lacks some of the lustre of similar Ives effects. The bizarre Ives is also at work They are There! This near-hysterial rant (not actually as militaristic as it sounds at first) is heard in a chorus-and-orchestral version that lacks something of the sheer outrageousness of Ives' own voice-and-piano recording (even though Tilson Thomas takes an effort to try to copy the style of that reading).

The chorus-and-organ setting of Psalm 100 ("Make a joyful noise unto the Lord") is an intriguing piece of writing that well merits its exposure here, though it can't match General William Booth Enters Into Heaven for sheer unbuttoned craziness. This setting of Vachel Lindsay's poem, heard here in a version for baritone, chorus and orchestra is one of Ives' most endearing creations: its remarkable mix of modernism, bizarre wit and sentimentality, topped off with the sudden introduction of a hymn tune at the climax, is typical of the composer at his best. Unfortunately, this performance misses out on the last edge of hysterical ecstasy that is so necessary for the work to have its full impact (in my opinion it's easier to bring off in the voice-and-piano version).

I realise I am perhaps being overcritical of this disc, but it seems to me that a disc by such a fine Ivesian as Tilson Thomas should be held to a very high standrd. Though I was personally disappointed by this recording, it may well appeal to those who know little of the composer: however, I fear that Ives specialists are likely to be underwhelmed.

a wonderful summary.......2002-12-21

Charles Ives has always been a puzzle to me. From time to time I have listened to his music with a complete lack of resolution. Did I actually like it? Is it just an American marketing phenomena? Would we hear as much of him if he were, say, an Australian composer? I am still totally uncertain, but I love this CD for its variety of styles, variety of forces and general good humour. If you are immediately dismissive of Ives, can I suggest you start with the two songs called 'Memories'? Have a listen to this CD with an open mind - you may not like it all - even most of it - but one thing is certain and that is that this is not run-of-the-mill music.

Ives is Ives.......2002-06-15

I grew up on movie soundtracks and scores from the likes of Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alex North and others. We have lost many of these composers but not their music they have left us through the years. That's a gift to all of us. I have been slowly looking at "20th century" composers from the "classical" arena to enhance my listening pleasure and my nature or "quest" to always seek out music that I am certain I must have passed over. I discovered Charles Ives after reading up further on Aaron Copland and his foray into many diverse areas of musical composition. One door opens another. Ives' name and compositions seem to have come up frequently. So far Charles Ives' music doesn't have the melodic quality of Copland or many contemporaries yet it does seem to have roots resulting in American musical motifs very strangely orchestrated resulting in some twisted profoundness. What attracts me is how Ives' music almost seems as if it were composed for film. Ives is Ives as I have found out. I enjoy this recording. It is strange, contemplative and definitely esoteric. Abrupt turns abound but that is the strength of Ives.

The Mood of Time.......2002-06-15

This collection of Ives compositions is exceptional. This CD makes for very good listening. I play it when I am alone in the car. The pensive music realy captures the mood of time.