Chales Ives: The Sonatas Forthcoming Album

Charles Ives is the greatest American composer, and also one of the most under appreciated. He was doing things that were just as revolutionary as Stravinsky at roughly the same time. Any Ives conducted by Bernstein is worth having. I like the Tilson-Thomas CDs too.

 

Central Park in the Dark

Unanswered Question

Symphonies No 2 and 3

Orchestral Sets 1 and 2

 

Start there. All great works.

Look around for the 3 places in New England and the New England Holidays. I'm sorry I can't recommend a specific recording. I heard the latter at the SF Symphony a couple of years ago and it's extraordinary.

I haven't listened to Charles Ives in a long time but he's fun.

…currently comparing two LP versions of Piano Sonata No. 2 "Concord, Mass 1840-60". One's by Aloys Kontarsky, the other Gilbert Kalish…can't say I like one more than the other just yet, though I think the Kalish may be a bit gauzier. You'd think that for a piece with this density gauzy might work better, but I'm not sure yet. I heard the Kontarsky first, though, so it could just be that I'm more familiar with it.

 

Wondering if anyone else in head-fi land has any faves of this piece? Right now I'm only interested in vinyl, but…

My current favorite on the Concord Sonata is the one by the SF Symphony. I saw them perform this not long ago with a piece by Copland (not something you'd expect but an early composition, his organ symphony) and an organ and percussion orchestra work by Harrison. The recording has the Copland, but I'm fairly sure they're not on vinyl.

…I keep reading that I should be up on the versions of the sonata by Marc-Andre Hamelin…he's recorded it twice. I'm sure I'll get there when I'm in a mood to purchase digital music again. It's funny…Hamelin did a nice interview with the jazz-based pianist Ethan Iverson on Iverson's popular blog "Do The Math". Hamelin says Kontarsky plays it "very German"…wasn't a compliment, I don't think. Sump'n to think about…

 

Iverson says something else that kinda defines the difference between jazz and classical approaches to music: "It’s just interesting how, as a jazz player, the recording is always the first source. And in classical music the score is the first source." My first thought upon reading it was, 'hmmm, that's probably true with players, but not necessarily with classical fan/listeners at this point'…

I'm not sure what I think about jazz musicians and classical works. My experience is, admittedly limited to Jarrett's Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues. He was fine, but no where near as nuanced a performance as Melnikov's imo.

Hahn's CD has received excellent reviews--do you like it?

 

I hear you…it's definitely a challenge (and I'm not the biggest fan of Keith Jarrett, though he's great on Arvo Pärt's "Fratres" with violinist Gidon Kremer). The first one I think of, however, is Miles Davis's Rodrigo: "Concierto de Aranjuez" on Sketches Of Spain…comes off better than most. I guess the Modern Jazz Quartet did some stuff that's not bad, either…
 

 

I'd forgotten about Jarrett's performance on "Fratres" completely. It's lovely work. It may be that Pärt's work has enough later 20th century sensibility for Jarrett's style.

MJQ was very interested in fugal structures and played around with some Bach IIRC, but it's still very much a jazz musician aesthetic. I need to go back and listen to it.

Oh and the Ives CD is very good.
Edited by rroseperry - 4/15/12 at 3:07pm

…forgive me…which one are you referring to again?

 

Edited by tru blu - 4/16/12 at 8:45am

No, my mistake, I should have been clearer that I was responding to Fugue's question about the Hahn/Lisitsa recording from last year.

Sounds quite interesting…for other interested head-fiers, there's a bit from "Violin Sonata No. 2" on writer Alex Ross' "The Rest Is Noise" blog…

 

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2011/10/cd-of-the-week-hilary-hahns-ives.html

 

 

 

…listening to Marc-Andre Hamelin's first recording of the "Concord Sonata" from 1988…he's said that Ives is "a poet" and approaches the piece like that (I think), not necessarily softening it—which Kalish might be guilty of—but sorta acting like the brash stuff we may have once thought of as "punk" is now just part of the wallpaper…pretty enlightening…