2 In Re Con Moto Et Al Experimentalism in the works of Charles Ives (1874-1954) All the wrong notes are right. . .I want it that way. Charles Ives, Note on the manuscript of The Fourth of July The life and works of Charles Ives are riddled by paradox.’ Though often referred to as America's greatest composer, his working life was spent in the world of insurance, His musical training consisted of a thorough grounding in traditional harmony and counterpoint, learned from his father ~ George Ives (1845-94) — and, at Yale betwoon 1894 and 1898, from Horatio Parker (1863- 1919). But Ives also inherited his fathor’s ‘natural interest in sounds of every kind, everywhere, known or unknown, measured “as such” or not’.? And while he is renowned for his early invention of many advanced compositional tech- niques he was, as John Kirkpatrick has pointed out, ‘primarily a melodist’? - as much a composer of sentimental ballads as of avant-garde instrumental works. Stylistic diversity is not in itself unusual - Beethoven, after all, had written canons, dance movements and folksong arrangements as well as symphonies, sonatas and string quartets, But the degree of inclusivity (and, indeed, rap- prochement between seemingly exclusive styles) found in Ives’ music, both from work to work and eventually within individual works, is quite unprece- dented. ‘This is illustrated, in the former case, by the seemingly alien settings of Spring Song (Z78) (14 Aug. 1907) and Soliloquy (279), written soon afterwards. ‘The former is charming, tonal and pleasing to the ear (though it ends in the subdominant rather than the tonic); the latter features wild chromatic declame- tion and underlying, distinctly non-tonal, interval chords. Inclusivity within a work is illustrated by the ordered pandemonium of Hawthorne (X19,ii) (1911) and the second movement of the Fourth Symphony (V39,ii) (1911-16), in each of which a wide selection of contrasting materials is juxtaposed and superimposed. Ives’ eclecticism can best be explained through his growing perception, in his formative years, of what music could or should be.' George Ives’ open- mindedness ~ which saw Bach and Stephen Foster as equals - was the back- ground against which his son was exposed first to the ‘useful’ music-making of Danbury (whether sacred or secular) and later to the ‘abstract idealism’ of Parker. Once Ives had given up (public) music in 1902, following the failure of The Gelestial Country (¥23) (1898-99), he was free to evolve from these various influences towards the eventual quasi-Transcendentalist view of art expressed in the Essays before a Sonata. In this, and in many other aspects of his creative development, Ives was unflinchingly supported by his wife, Harmony (1870-6 American experimental music, 1890-1940 1969). Indeed, it is no coincidence that Ives’ greatest period of experimentalism, dating from 1905-06, follows on directly from the beginning of his romance with her (they were married in 1908).5 Ives’ experimentalism is of two basic kinds: 1 the production of overtly experimental works in which, generally speaking, he tries out new compositional techniques; 2 the production of music in an unprecedentedly wide variety of sup- posedly exclusive musical styles and, more importantly, the integra- tion of these styles into a pluralistic whole. In the latter category, amongst other things, we find Ives continuing and developing many of the traditions of nineteenth-century American art and popular music. This is shown in various ways by songs like The Circus Band (220) (21894), Kairen (230) (#1895), At the River (Z101) (71916) and The Greatest ‘Man (2140) (?Jun. 1921), and such instrumental works as the First and Second ‘Symphonies (V8/V11} (1895-98/1900-02) and the First String Quartet (W1) (May 1896). More complex are the mature ‘pluralistic’ works - including the Second String Quartet (W19) (1907-13), Fourth Symphony (V39) (1909-16) and Second Piano Sonata (X19) (1910-15) - which, in their individual movements and as a ‘whole, tend towards the collage-form which is a logical development of stylistic diversity. This, together with the sheer size of many of these pieces, demands (and deserves) much more detailed examination than van swalistivally be afforded here. However, a relatively brief study of a relatively simple collage work - ‘in the Inn’ (1906-11) from the Set for Theatre or Chamber Orchestra (22) - will be included. Apart from the availability of the music, though, there is little limitation on the discussion of those purely experimental works of the former category, and consequently it is upon these that this chapter will concentrate. For in his experimental pieces Ives often tried out ~ in a pure, private way - techniques which could later be less inflexibly absorbed into other, more public, works. It is hoped that the examination of these techniques, together with the necessarily brief consideration of stylistic diversity and collage, will therefore go some way towards explaining the very complex inner workings of Ives’ greatest music. As was indicated previously, the earliest stimulus to Ives’ experimental imagi- nation came from his father who, although he did little composing, made many explorations into unknown musical territories including bitonality, quarter- tones, and spatial separation of instrumental groups.” Among the first of Ives! works to reflect this liberal musical education are the series of Psalm settings which probably date from the summer of 1894. In the outer sections of Psalm 150 (13) Ives approaches bi- or polytonality, as tho basic tonal triads of the harmony are chromatically ‘decorated’ by the superimposition of other proximate tonal triads (see example 2.1). However, as with the majority of Ives' experiments, this probably grew from a desire to fix in his music something heard or experienced in real life. In this case a likely explanation is found inCharles Ives a added; its pitches are often related to those of U, though its melodic line is not. ‘The next addition is of a bass line (B) which moves in triplets against those of T (40. tho three layers move in rhythmic ratios of Ud:T6:B9). Once again the pitches are related to those of U, though the molodic line is not. But as in medieval writing, while the two added lines (T, B) both relate to the ‘tenor’ U, they do not relate to each other. ‘The final layer is that of the combined soprano and alto parts (F): these move homorhythmically, at first in decorated semibreves, then in minims and crotchets. Their pitches are initially a fifth apart but are later somewhat freer, ‘though they at all times relate to those of U. However, the overall shape of the chorale is not as simple as might have been suggested by the above description. In verses 2 and 4 the harmonic pattern U is, altered: bars 54~60 consist of a variant of U, over which truncated versions of T, Band Fare presented. In verse 2 the harmonies of bars 26-28 are very similar to those of bars 54-56, though the overlying T and B lines are essentially unchanged. Of the two interruptions, the first consists simply of a tenor chant on ct’ over the harmony of bars 26/54. The second opens with an octave chant on Cis (bar 51) but this is followed by two bars of homorhythm (chords of c# and f#). The accompanying music consists of three added-sixth chords over the pedal-note Ci. The total effect is of polytonality. One final point worth noting here is that the dynamics and tempi of ‘Lord of the Harvest’ aro integrated into its overall accumulating structure. The music progresses from one layer (U), played quietly and slowly, to four layers, played loudly and quickly; and while this progression is twice broken by the chanted interruptions, and further articulated by the variations of verses 2 and 4, the whole work is held together by the fundamental Ct pedal-note of the accompaniment. Much of the discussion so far has been concerned with Ives’ experimentation in the realms of pitch. As was mentioned earlier, the norm in Ives’ work seems to be that once a technique has been successfully tried out it becomes part of the large pool of available compositional resources, to be used freely and at will in appropriate but often unexpected contexts. Thus the harmonic and melodic content of Ives’ more mature pieces takes full advantage of a wide range of resources, from tonal through to totally chromatic, and many works are touched to a greater or lesser extent by the results of the experiments so far discussed. But although a number of later pieces show Ives experimenting further with pitch (and, indeed, these will be discussed in due course) his interests from about 1901 onwards move increasingly towards other parameters. Simple poly- thythms and polymetres, both real and implied, had already been used in a number of works, while ‘Lord of the Harvest’ featured both complex poly- rhythms and the structuring of elements other than rhythm and pitch. The implications of this work are more fully explored in From the Steeples and the Mountains (W3) (1901-202) for one or two trumpets, trombone, and four sets of bells.”