 [Larger view] | Charles Ives, Joseph Philbrick Webster and more - Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4/Hymns
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 Detail of Ives's Evolution over Time | |
| This CD consists of the Charles Ives's first and last symphonies. The first is a work that Ives wrote as his thesis while a music student at Yale. It demonstrates Ives's mastery of the late 19th century style. It's an interesting and thoroughly engaging work of music, but nothing spectacular. The real highlight of this disc is the 4th symphony, which is probably the best played version of this piece currently available. The fourth is Ives's most ambitious and experimental work. It experiments with atonality, polytonality, polyryhthms, and the layering of multiple orchestras (or at least the impression of layering multiple orchestras). Plus, in typical Ives fashion, the fourth includes numerous quotes to popular American music of his time, especially marches and ragtime. What sets this recording of the fourth apart from the numerous others that are available is its Americanness. The other available recordings are conducted by non-Americans who don't seem to have a real grasp of the uniquely American qualities of this piece. Other recordings tend to suffer from a very modernist approach. The playing is precise and the multiple textures are very clear...however, that's not the point of this piece. MTT makes this piece swing, which is exactly how it's supposed to be played. Listen to the quotes from ragtime and marches in other versions of this piece as compared to the ragtime and american marches in this recording. This recording sounds very American and captures the essence of turn of the century American music, wheras the other recordings play this swinging music as if it were an excercise in precision conducting. Yes, if you want to hear the music played with precise and clearly articulated textures, go for the Ozawa recording. If you want to hear the fourth as the revolutionary piece of music that celebrates America, as Ives meant to be heard, then pick up this recording. | |
 Much Better Choices Available | |
| Tilson Thomas--a wonderful conductor of much 20th-century music--just doesn't have the ear for Ives. This seems true for all of the composer's work, as varied as it was. The 1st Symphony, a student work, in Tilson Thomas's hands seems exactly the proficient but minor piece it was long regarded as. Mehta's rendering on Decca is infinitely more compelling, revealing it as the one of the first outstanding American symphonies. Likewise, Tilson Thomas's rendering of the still astonishingly radical 4th does not come close to Stokowski's premiere recording on Sony (I hardly know what to think of the reviewer who finds problems with its audio quality--it's powerful and absolutely first-rate) or Ozawa's thrilling version on DG. That last is paired (along with Ozawa's definitive take on "Central Park in the Dark") with a Tilson Thomas "Three Places in New England"--once again, unconvincing. | |
| Stunning Recording/Performance/Interpretation | |
| I caught the Ives "bug" in 70's while in college. I heard the Houston Symphony and Lawrence Foster perform the 4th live in Jones Hall. While completely baffled by much of what I heard, I knew I had to learn more about this composer. I bought and listened to as many LP's as I could afford, among them was the Ormandy/Philadelphia 1st and Stokowski/American Symphony 4th on Columbia. I was fond of both the 1st and 4th, but set them both aside until recently. I listened to them both, found that I still enjoyed them very much, but found both lacking from a sound quality point of view. I searched the Web and found glowing reviews of this CD. Well, the reviews are 100% justified. This CD will quite possibly become my favorite in my collection. Pairing the 1st and the 4th makes sense. George Ives told his son, "You have to learn the rules before you can break them". The 1st clearly shows that Ives learned the rules admirably. The work is both moving at times and tremendous fun. Take a young, creative, and relatively uninhibited musical genius, expose him to the great European masters like Brahms, Dvorak, Wagner, and Beethoven, mix in church hymns, American folk and band music, and you will get the Ives 1st Symphony. Comparing the Ormandy to the Tilson Thomas, while I'm very fond of the Ormandy reading, I find the Tilson Thomas to be overall significantly more satisfying. The Ives 1st is a technically challenging work particularly for the 1st violins. Except for a few very minor flaws, the CSO strings meet the challenge. Tilson Thomas extracts more of the music from the score. The recording engineers get an A+ for overall balance and sound. This is a fine, very accessible work which deserves many more performances in the concert hall than what I suspect it currently gets. Between the First and Fourth are performances of five hymns that are used in the Fourth - a nice bonus. It's difficult for me to discuss the Ives Fourth. I have been a fan of the work since I first heard it. The third, slow movement is a reworking of the first movement of the First String Quartet. It's accessible, beautiful, and deeply moving. The other three movements are experimental music at its all time best -- powerful, baffling, mysterious, chaotic, and profoundly moving. This music arguably could have been an intellectual exercise only, but somehow completely transcends this, and becomes something which I can only, given my limitations as a music listener, view with great awe and mystery. For me this music is completely engaging, fascinating, transports me at times into an altered state of mind that I can't even begin to describe, and ultimately moves me to the strongest and most deeply felt of emotions. I considered this work to be a masterpiece in a category all by itself. If there are other works like this one, I want to know about them, please. I give this release the highest of all possible recommendations. The attention to detail and how successfully it has been captured on disk is simply amazing. |
