VOTD 03/27/2025

 Charles Ives: The World of Charles Ives (Columbia)

(Three Places in New England, Washington's Birthday, Robert Browning overture)

It's a shame that I don't listen to local radio nearly as much as I used to. Generally when I do it's the NPR news outlet, but there's only so much of that I can take too and very little of its content is locally based. I just don't think most of the programming is worthwhile. I'll occasionally put on a local jazz station, and sometimes my old digs WRCT, but I just don't find it exciting like I once did. Sometimes I'm proven wrong, but not often enough. Maybe I'm just old and jaded.

I also don't listen to CDs in the car as much as I used to either. I have a cheap disc player, and had to hot glue the power supply to it, fed from that opening that used to hold the cigarette lighter. It's a nuisance, but still worthwhile on longer drives.

All of which is to say, it's easy for me to Bluetooth podcasts to my car stereo and that makes up a lot of my listening when I'm driving. Podcasts are another vast ocean of garbage to wade through, so it's not wonder I tend to focus on just a few, and even then nobody consistently. Marc Maron, Dana Carvey and David Spade, Al Franken, Joe Dante's "The Movies That Made Me", some others, and none of them consistently. 

Among the podcasts I intermittently catch is "Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast". I probably found it hunting for someone talking about Messiaen. That particular episode gave a nice summation of Messiaen's work, though the host (whose name I can't recall) didn't go into Turangalîla because he though another orchestral piece demonstrated Messiaen wanderlust more effectively. Meh. But then, being a big fan of that particular work, I guess it colors my opinion.

I've recently listened to his episode about Charles Ives' Three Places in New England, described with great enthusiasm. While I knew Ives blatantly and almost shamelessly quoted other peoples' melodies, even I wasn't aware to what extent. In the three movements, there's really only one significant original theme, the opening to "Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut", itself an adaptation of Ives' own "Country Band March". 

Indeed, the host pointed out a particular spot where four distinct melodies, all quotes, are playing at the same time. It's not even the densest section of the movement. 

The work itself wouldn't be performed for almost two decades after its composition and orchestration. What exactly did Ives have in mind for this music that he wrote mostly for himself? Surely he did intend this to be performed at some point, but outside of possibly living room reading sessions, it wouldn't have been heard by anyone until long after its completion. By pushing through this collage of melodic materials, what is he asking of an audience (if he is indeed asking anything)?

Perhaps he wouldn't put it in these words, but I think Ives was playing at perception. What are you able to pick out? What do you recognize, what do you think you recognize? If four melodies play simultaneously, what if anything will you pick out from the combination? Will you heard different things with each subsequent listening?

Ives seems to have a gift for polychordal and polymodal composing; inside of a denser chord, it sounds as though there's a major or minor chord lurking. Or, he often places a tonal melody superimposed over a chord with which it has no clear relationship. If you were to pick apart the elements they'd all seem perfectly sweet sounding. It's his way of combining them that sound unsettled and unsettling. 

I have a copy of the score for Three Places, thanks to a certain guitarist's yard sale. The podcast host mentioned that there are several different edits of the work. And indeed, there are distinct differences between my copy of the score and the version heard here, conducted by Eugene Ormandy.

I enjoy Three Places and consider it the strongest work of this collection. But looking at the score, it's clearly not an easy piece to perform. I can picture many schooled orchestral players bristling over some of the demands and sounds of the work. I also suspect the general American classical music concertgoer probably doesn't go to the symphony hall of have their perception challenged. I on the other hand might actually attend more often if this was the sort of work they'd program, but I guess I'm not where the money is.