Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives ( born October 20, 1874 in Danbury, Connecticut, † May 19, 1954 in New York City ) was an American composer.

Life

Charles Ives was the son of the U.S. Army bandmaster, George Edward Ives (1845-1894) and his wife Mary Ives, born in Parmelee († 1929). The father - a more adventurous musician, a teaching in New York and originally from Europe organist had trained - made ​​his son familiar with the works of Bach and with Helmholtz's theory of the sensations of tone. Charles Ives then played since 1888 at the organ. His composition studies began in 1894 with Horatio Parker at Yale University in New Haven. Here the student learned the German music theory of Salomon Jadassohn know, which Ives first took over the song style of Schumann and Brahms. But already during his studies, which he completed in 1898, located Ives emancipated from rules of European music. After graduating, he decided to take a conventional profession because he felt obliged to include musical compromises if he wanted to live by the music. Therefore he started an activity with an insurance company, where he worked as an organist at the same time until his thirtieth year. He composed music in his spare time. In 1907, the insurance company Ives Ives & Co.

1908 married Charles Ives nurse Harmony Twitchell ( 1876-1969 ). The couple moved to New York City, where Ives 1909, the insurance company Ives & Myrick founded. 1915 adopted the couple the fifteen -month-old Edith Osborne ( 1914-1956 ). Ives remained until his first heart attack in 1918 a prolific composer; then he restricted composing a fairly. 1924 Ives took his first trip to Europe, specifically to England. His last original composition Sunrise for voice and string quartet with its own text dates from the year 1926. Thereafter still followed several revisions and revisions of earlier works. More Travel in Europe followed in 1932/ 33, 1934, and 1938.

Through its activities in the insurance industry Ives had come into a handsome fortune, with which he financed concerts, publications and recordings by fellow composers.

Reception

His life has been largely ignored Ives ' music, and so were most of his works for many years unperformed. His tendency to experiment and uncompromising use of dissonance recognized only a few listeners. After Ives's view was one of the worst words, abzuklassifizieren music, the term "nice" (nice), so that his own unpopularity probably did not surprise him. In 1940 he met Lou Harrison, a trailer of his music, which aided him and his popularity increased somewhat. Most notable was his conducting of the premiere of the Symphony No. 3 in 1946, originally Gustav Mahler in 1911 wanted to perform in Vienna. The following year he won the Pulitzer Prize so. The prize money he gave away ( half of Harrison) with the statement: ". Prizes are for schoolboys - I am no longer a schoolboy "

In the decades after his death his reputation gradually grew, and today he is considered one of the most important American composers.

Compositions

Although Ives wrote many songs with often strikingly original piano accompaniment, he is known today primarily for his instrumental music. Influenced by his work as an organist, he wrote in 1891 Variations on " America" ​​, which he himself lectured to 4th of July festivities. The piece makes the melody ( the British national anthem corresponds to ) a number of more conventional but witty variations. One is in the style of flamenco, another that he had composed some years after the first performance, is probably Ives ' first approach of bitonality. A version of William Schuman for Orchestra was premiered in 1964 and shows how Ives was recognized after his death. Ives was also experimenting with textures that run at different speeds, with quarter tones and space music.

One of the first and most striking examples of Ives ' The Unanswered Question experimentation is from 1906, a work which he wrote for an unusual instrumentation (trumpet, four flutes and string quartet ). Later, an orchestral version followed. The strings play during the whole piece a very slow, continuous, chorale-like sequence pure chords of the wind instruments confront dissonance. Seven are the trumpet first a short motif before, the Ives " the eternal question of existence" as described. Six times seek the flutes an answer - always different and ever more stark. In the end, however, the question remains unanswered. It is a typical Ives piece - it provides various disparate elements over each other without clarifying their relationships accurately, it appears driven by a narrative, we are never fully aware of, and remains the last mysterious. Therefore, The Unanswered Question is a film music often at death scenes using, for example, runs in the movies Lola ( 1998) by Tom Tykwer and The Thin Red Line ( 1998) by Terrence Malick.

The inclusion of functional music ( marches, dances, ragtime, church hymns, etc. ) is another characteristic feature of Ives ' music, for in works such as Central Park in the Dark ( 1906) or Three Places in New England ( 1908-14 ) applied. Also find quotes from the history of music, especially from the work of Ludwig van Beethoven's use, so that the relationship to tradition problematized and is discussed in music. Most complex form does the exciting combination of heterogeneous elements in the Fourth Symphony ( 1910-16 ) and in the First ( 1901-1909 ) and especially the Second Piano Sonata ( 1909-1915 ). The latter is like Ives ' entire thinking in a particular way influenced by the Transcendentalist writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, which he bequeathed to each of a set in the Sonata with the programmatic title Concord, Mass.. , 1840-1860. The other dedicatee were Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Alcott (ie, the family of the philosopher and educator Amos Bronson Alcott reform and his daughter Louisa May ). The work, which was long considered almost unplayable, is today at about fifteen shots. Ives ' last big project was the fragment remained Universe Symphony, the first movement Prelude from nineteen different percussion parts should be made in various meters. The composer Larry Austin and Jonny Reinhard submitted each have their own realization of the work. Symphony No.. 4 was included in the legendary list Wire The Wire 's " 100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening ) ".

List of Works

Orchestral works

  • Central Park In The Dark (1906 )
  • Emerson Concerto
  • Holiday Quickstep for Orchestra (1887 )
  • Hymn for String Orchestra (1904 )
  • Orchestral Set No.1 "Three Places In New England" ( 1903-1914 )
  • Orchestral Set No.2 ( 1915)
  • Symphony No.. 1 JS1 ( 1897/98-1908 )
  • Symphony No.. 2 JS2 ( 1897-1909 )
  • Symphony No.. 3 " The Camp Meeting" JS3 ( 1901-1904/1908-1911 )
  • Symphony No.. 4 JS4 ( 1910-1916 )
  • Symphony No.. 5 JS5 (Suite ) ( 1917)
  • Symphony No.. 6 " Universe Symphony " for multiple Orchestra, in continuous sections JS6 (fragment, completed by Larry Austin ) ( 1911-1928 )
  • The Fourth Of July for Orchestra (1904-1913)
  • The Unanswered Question for Trumpet, 4 Flutes and Strings (1906 )
  • Washington 's Birthday for Orchestra (1913 )

Chamber Music

Choral works

  • December for Male Choir unison, Woodwind and Brasses (1912 /13)
  • Easter Carol for SATB and organ ( 1892)
  • Holydays Symphony for Choir and Orchestra (1904-1913)
  • Psalms Nos. 14, 24, 25, 42, 54, 67, 90, 100, 135, 150 for chorus and orchestra

Writings

  • Essays before a Sonata, New York, 1920.
  • Essays before a Sonata and other Writings, ed by H. Boatwright, New York 1964.
  • Memos, ed by J. Kirkpatrick, New York 1973.
  • Selected texts: Essays Before a Sonata; Afterword to the 114 songs; Memos., Trans. v. F. Meyer, Zurich 1985.

Correspondence

  • Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives, ed by TC Owens, Berkeley 2007

List of Works

  • James B. Sinclair: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives, New Haven 1999
178634
de