Symphony No. 2 (Ives)

The Symphony No. 2 JS2 of the composer Charles Ives (1874 - 1954) was born 1897-1902, and had its world premiere in 1951 in New York City. The work is in five movements and shows predominantly late-romantic features.

Genesis and first performance

Charles Ives began work on his Symphony No. 2 in 1897, and it was his main plan to combine traditional European and American music in one piece. Since it full time in 1899 earned his living as a contractor, he composed only in his spare time and completed the work in 1902. Five years later he took over the work on the piece again and revised it before he left in 1909 make a fair copy.

The premiere took place only on 22 February 1951 in Carnegie Hall in New York City with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein instead. Despite many ambiguities and errors on the score it was a great success, even though Ives did not attend the event itself. He listened to because of his advanced age, the radio broadcast at his neighbors.

Around the turn of the millennium Jonathan Elkus, a lecturer at the University of California attempted due to the many errors to score a reconstruction of the play.

Scoring and structure

The piece is filled with piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, triangle, snare drum, bass drum and strings.

The sequence of movements, with a total playing time of around 40 minutes, is:

The five movements of the symphony are thematically not all of its own. Thus, the introductory string theme of the first movement in the fourth set is reused easily varied. The following respective sets (two and five) have a similar march-like character. There are various musical quotations available, including on Ludwig van Beethoven, and there are recurring ragtime elements in addition to romantic melodies. The finale ends, in contrast to the rest of the piece, with a loud dissonance.