21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / February 2017

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

February 2017

Volume 24, Number 2


Alexander Goehr / Elizabeth Agnew

Calendar / For February 2017


Illustration / Alexander Goehr


Editorial Staff

Mark Alburger
EDITOR-PUBLISHER

Harriet March Page
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Patti Noel Deuter
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Erling Wold
WEBMASTER

Elizabeth Agnew
Alexis Alrich
Katherine Buono
Ken Bullock
A.J. Churchill
David Cleary
Jeff Dunn
Phillip George
Elliot Harmon
Brian Holmes
Jeff Kaliss
John Lane
Arel Lucas
Michael McDonagh
Chip Michael
Tom Moore
Carol Marie Reynolds
William Rowland
John Palmer
Lisa Scola Prosek
Cristina Scuderi
Andrew Shapiro
Alice Shields
CORRESPONDENTS


INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC is published monthly by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. ISSN 1534-3219.

Subscription rates in the U.S. are $120.00 per year; subscribers elsewhere should add $48.00 for postage. Single copies of the current volume and back issues are $12.00. Large back orders must be ordered by volume and be pre-paid. Please allow one month for receipt of first issue. Domestic claims for non-receipt of issues should be made within 90 days of the month of publication, overseas claims within 180 days. Thereafter, the regular back issue rate will be charged for replacement. Overseas delivery is not guaranteed. Send orders to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. email: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Typeset in Times New Roman. Copyright 2017 by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC. This journal is printed on recycled paper. Copyright notice: Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC.

The Journal is also online at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com


INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC invites pertinent contributions in analysis, composition, criticism, interdisciplinary studies, musicology, and performance practice; and welcomes reviews of books, concerts, music, recordings, and videos. The journal also seeks items of interest for its calendar, chronicle, comment, communications, opportunities, publications, recordings, and videos sections. Copy should be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11 -inch paper, with ample margins. Authors are encouraged to submit via e-mail.

Prospective contributors should consult The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), in addition to back issues of this journal. Copy should be sent to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com. Materials for review may be sent to the same address.


INFORMATION FOR ADVERTISERS

Send all inquiries to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Alexander Goehr / Elizabeth Agnew

Alexander Goehr (b. August, 10 1932, Berlin, Germany) and his family moved to Great Britain when he was only a few months old.  He came from an extremely musical family: mother Laelia was a classically trained pianist, and father Walter a conductor and Arnold Schoenberg pupil.  While Goehr's relationship to his pere was not unproblematic, Walter had a determining influence on his son via composers whose work was championed, including Claudio Monteverdi, Modest Mussorgsky, Schoenberg, and Olivier Messiaen.  As a child, Alexander grew up in a household populated by composers, including Mátyás Seiber and Michael Tippett.

Goehr initially intended to study classics at Oxford University, but went instead to study composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music, with Richard Hall.

In his composition classes, Goehr became friends with Harrrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, and John Ogdon, with whom he founded the New Music Manchester Group.  His interest in non-Western music -- sparked by encountering Messiaen's work, combined with an enthusiasm for medieval modes, shared with Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle -- largely influenced Goehr's first acknowledged compositions, including Songs for Babel, Op. 1 (1951) and the Sonata for Piano, Op. 2 (1952), dedicated to Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953).  A seminal event during this period was hearing the United Kingdom premiere of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony in 1953, conducted by Walter Goehr.

In 1955, Alexander Goehr left Manchester for Paris and study with Messiaen, and remained there until October 1956.  Part of his interest was in combining the contrapuntal rigor and motivic workings of the First Viennese School and Second Viennese School with a strong sense of harmonic pacing and sonority. Indeed, during this time he also studied counterpoint and serialism with Schoenberg scholar and composer Max Deutsch, although not for long.  Evidently, Deutsch threw Goehr out of his house upon hearing that the young man intended to study with Messiaen as well.  Goehr's indebtedness to Messiaen from this point has been very strong, as is apparent in Goehr's lifelong commitment to modality as an integration to both serialism and tonality.

The Parisian music scene would make a great impression on Goehr, who became good friends with Pierre Boulez and was involved in the serialist avant-garde movement of those years.  Goehr experimented with Boulez's technique of bloc sonore, particularly in String Quartet No. 1 (1957). Boulez was a mentor to Goehr in the late 50's, programming his new compositions in concerts at Paris's Marigny Theatre.

Eventually Goehr's sensibility parted from Boulez's serialism.  What disturbed Goehr was mainly his perception that serialism had become a cult of stylistic purity, modelling itself on the 12-tone works of Anton Webern.  Perhaps Goehr's strong sense of indebtment to Schoenberg, had something to do with his ambivalent reaction to the Boulez / Karlheinz Stockhausen / Darmstadt School avant-garde of the time.  Like the older composer, Goehr refused to view current composition as a practice that is independent of any musical tradition, but rather, he sought in tradition the elements for the innovation of musical language.

"Choice, taste and style were dirty words; personal style, one could argue, is necessarily a product of repetition, and the removal of repetition is, or was believed to be, a cornerstone of classical serialism as defined by Webern's late works. . . . All this may well be seen as a kind of negative style precept: a conscious elimination of sensuous, dramatic or expressive elements, indeed of everything that in the popular view constitutes music."

Upon his return to Britain, Goehr experienced a breakthrough with the performance of The Deluge, Op. 7 (1958), in 1957, under his father's baton.  This big, ambitious work was inspired by the writings of Sergei Eisenstein, who is one of Goehr's many extra-musical sources of inspiration. Indeed, much of Goehr's works from this point ae, in one way or another, studies in the synthesis of several, different elements.  In this case inspired by Eisenstein's notes for an unfinished film based on a writing by Leonardo da Vinci; music about a director's incomplete jottings for a movie based on the writings of a painter.  The soundworld could be seen to have been derived from Webern's two cantatas, but it strives for the imposing harmonic tautness and full sonority of Prokofiev's two Eisenstein collaborations, Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78 (1939), and Ivan the Terrible, Op. 116 (1945). The cantata genre is one that Goehr would explore a number of times throughout his career, as would be the notion of, at least metaphorically, completing the unfinished works of others.

Following the success of Deluge, Goehr was commissioned a new cantata, Sutter's Gold, Op. 10 (1959), for choir, baritone, and orchestra.  However, the new work proved difficult for the singers, and was reasons why the work was dismissed by critics upon its performance at the Leeds festival in 1961.  This débacle, however, had a constructive impact on Goehr: rather than dismissing criticism as the mere result of incompetence, he genuinely faced the questions of the position of the avant-garde composer and his music:

"If one wishes, one can just say that music has to be autonomous and self sufficient; but how to sustain such a view when people who sing for pleasure are deprived of true satisfaction in the performance of new work? . . . We can talk about music in terms of the ideas that inform it; we can talk about structure and techniques; we can talk about aesthetics or ethics or politics. But we have to remember that while all this, realistic or not, is of great importance to composers and to anyone who likes to follow what composers are doing, what is being discussed is not the music itself but the location of the music, the place where it exists."

Despite this, Goehr continued to compose choral works.  Encouraged by friendship with the choral conductor John Alldis, who was strongly committed to new music, Goehr composed Two Choruses, Op. 14 (1962), using for the first time a combination of modality and serialism which was to remain his main technical resource for the next 14 years.  His search for a model of serialism that could allow for expressive freedom led him to the Baroque evocations of Suite, Op. 11 (1961), and his Little Symphony, Op. 15 (1963).  This latter is a memorial to Goehr's conductor-composer father, who had unexpectedly died, and is based upon a chord-sequence subtly modelled upon the "Catacombs" movement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), of which Goehr senior had made a close harmonic analysis.

This flexible approach to serialism, integrating harmonic background with bloc sonore and modality, is very representative of the type of writing that Goehr developed as an alternative to the strictures of total serialism.  It is no coincidence that Boulez -- who had earlier facilitated the performance of Goehr's music -- refused to program Little Symphony: by 1963. Goehr had departed from the style of his Parisian days.

In 1964, the composer founded the Wardour Castle Summer School with Birtwistle and Davies, and began a preoccupation with opera and music theatre.  He wrote his first opera, Arden Must Die (Arden Muss Sterben, Op. 21, 1966), a Brechtian setting of a Jacobean morality play which had contemporary political and social resonances.  Goehr's striking setting of a text, composed by Erich Fried in duplets, makes the most of the idea of simple musical ideas that are continually distorted into sinister and sarcastic realms.

Goehr founded the Music Theatre Ensemble in 1967, and thereafter completed the three-part music-theatre cycle Tryptich: Naboth's Vineyard, Op. 26 (1968), and Shadowplay, Op. 30 (1970) were both explicitly written for Music Theatre Ensemble, while Sonata about Jerusalem, Op. 31 (1971), was commissioned by Testimonium Jerusalem and performed by the Israel Chamber Orchestra and Gary Bertini.

From 1968 to 1969, he was Composer-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory of Music, and went on to teach at Yale University as Associate Professor of Music.   Goehr returned to the UK as Visiting Lecturer at Southampton University (1970–1971).  He was then appointed West Riding Professor of Music at the University of Leeds.  During this time, he found inspiration from the formal proportions of a late Beethoven piano sonata in Metamorphosis/Dance, Op. 36 (1974).  Goehr left Leeds in 1976 when he was appointed Professor of Music at Cambridge University, where he taught until his retirement in 1999.

Goehr's search for a means of controlling structure and harmony in music led him in during this time to an innovative interpretation Baroque figured bass in conjunction with modality and serialism.
This is exemplified in his setting of Psalm IV, Op. 38a (1976), the ensuing correlated works: Fugue Op. 38b (1976), and Romanza, Op. 38c (1977), on the same source.  The simple, bright modal sonorities mark a final departure from post-war serialism and a commitment to a more transparent aesthetic.

The output of the ensuing years testified to Goehr's desire to use this new idiom to explore ideas and genres that had already become constant features, such as re-animating a writers posthumously published prose Das Gesetz der Quadrille, Op. 41 (1979, to words of Franz Kafka), and he exploration of symphonic form, in Sinfonia, Op. 42, and Symphony with Chaconne, Op. 48 (1986).

A common feature of many vocal compositions of these years is the choice of subjects that function as allegories for reflection upon socio-political themes.  The cantata Babylon the Great is Fallen, Op. 40 (1979), and the opera Behold the Sun, Op. 44a (1985), for which the former can be considered to be a sketch study -- both explore the themes of violent revolution via the texts from the Anabaptist uprising in Münster of 1543.

There are also non-political works such as Sing, Ariel, Op. 51 (1990), that recalls Messiaen's stylized birdsong and sets a kaleidoscope of English poetry.

The Death of Moses, Op. 53 (1992) uses Moses' angry refusal to die as an allegory for the destiny of the victims of the Holocaust, in a style the composer characterizes as Claudio "Monteverdi heard through Varese."  This cantata also alludes to Schoenberg's unfinished Moses und Aron (1932)

Related, inspirations of this period include the art of Francisco Goya (1746-1828), in the orchestral Colossus or Panic, Op. 55 (1990), and the opera Arianna, Op. 58 (1995) -- written on an Ottavio Rinuccini libretto for L'Arianna, a lost opera by Monteverdi (completed by Goehr?!) -- a typically idiosyncratic exploration of sonorities re the Italian Renaissance.  Arianna also most overtly displays Goehr's intent to turn his reinvention of the past into a musical process that the audience can hear and identify:

"The impression I aim to create is one of transparency: the listener should perceive, both in the successive and simultaneous dimensions of the score, the old beneath the new and the new arising from the old. We are to see a mythological and ancient action, interpreted by a 17th-century poet in a modern theatre."

Quintet - Five Objects Darkly, Op. 62 (1996), whose title is borrowed from a work by the painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) is a set of variations based on a Mussorgsky fragment.

The last 17 years of Goehr's output have not received the generous coverage, both in terms of academic writing and frequency of performance, of his previous work.  This output is heralded by the striking opera Kantan and Damask Drum, Op. 67 (1999), premiered at the Dortmund Opera.  This drama consists of two plays from the Japanese Noh tradition, separated by a short kyogen humorous interlude.  The 15th-century Japanese texts were adapted by the composer in this setting.  The lusciously tonal idiom does not indulge in orientalism, but rather the relationship between music and drama in Noh animates the entire work. Again with Kantan and Damask Drum, the search continues for an expressive synthesis; in this case, one of Eastern and Western, past and present.

In the following years, Goehr devoted himself almost exclusively to chamber music, where he gained unprecedented rhythmic and harmonic immediacy.  His music remains ever permeable by the imagery and sounds of other times and places, as in the Piano Quintet, Op. 69 (2000), and the Fantasie for cello and piano, Op. 77 (2005), are haunted by rich sonorities of a Maurice Ravelian quality.

The set of piano pieces Symmetries Disorder Reach, Op. 72 (2002) is a barely disguised baroque suite haunted by the spirit of early Alban Berg.  Marching to Carcassonne, Op. 74 (2003), flirts with neoclassicism and Igor Stravinsky; and manere for violin and clarinet (2008), based on a fragment of medieval chant, is a typical foray into the art of musical ornament.  Since Brass nor Stone for string quartet and percussion, Op. 80 (2008), a memorial to Pavel Haas, was inspired by a Shakespeare sonnet, from which it borrows its title.  This work is representative of the inventiveness of recent chamber work.  One reviewer described the work as "hiccoughing fugal patterns overlaid with intricate, delicate percussion . . . a magical garden of dappled textures"

After an almost ten-year hiatus, Goehr returned to opera with Promised End, Op. 83 (2009), first performed by English Touring Opera in 2010 and based on Shakespeare’s King Lear.  When Adam Fell, Op. 89 (2011), was a BBC commission for orchestra based on the chromatic bass from the Bach chorale Durch Adam’s Fall ist alles Verderbt, first introduced to Goehr by his teacher Olivier Messiaen.  To These Dark Steps/The Fathers are Watching, Op. 90 (2012), written for tenor, children's choir and ensemble, sets texts by Israeli poet Gabriel Levin concerning the bombing of Gaza during the Iraq war and was premiered in a concert marking Goehr’s 80th birthday.

Largo Siciliano, Op. 91 (2012) is a trio praised for its mastery of aural balance among violin, horn, and piano, from opening melancholy to an ending vanishing into oblivion. The chamber symphony …between the lines… (2013), the latest commission in a long-standing relationship with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, is a monothematic work of four movements played without a break, in direct acknowledgement of Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 (1906).

Further sources of inspiration for Goehr have the treatises on musical ornamentation by Monteverdi and Carl Philip Emanuel Bach.  The former's synthesis of Renaissance polyphony with the early Baroque homophony and the control of harmony clearly mirrors Goehr's own commitment to a harmonically expressive contemporary practices.


Works List

Songs of Babel, Op.  1 (1951)
Piano Sonata, Op. 2 (1952)
Fantasias for clarinet and piano, Op. 3 (1954)
Capriccio for piano, Op. 6 (1957)
String Quartet No. 1 (1957)
The Deluge, Op. 7 (1958)
Variations for flute and piano, Op. 8 (1959)
Four Songs from the Japanese, Op. 9 (1959)
Sutter's Gold, Op. 10 (1959)
Hecuba's Lament, Op. 12 (1961)
Suite, Op. 11 (1961)
Violin Concerto, Op. 13 (1962)
Two Choruses, Op. 14 (1962)
Virtutes, a cycle of nine songs and melodramas (1963)
Little Symphony, Op. 15; Little Music for Strings, Op. 16 (1963)
Five Poems and an Epigram of William Blake, Op. 17 (1964)
Three Piano Pieces, Op. 18 (1964)
Pastorals, Op. 19 (1965)
Piano Trio, Op. 20 (1966)
Arden Must Die (Opera), Op. 21 (1966)
Three Pieces from "Arden Must Die", Op. 21a (1967)
Warngedichte, for mezzo-soprano and piano), Op. 22 (1967)
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 23 (1967)
Romanza, for cello and orchestra, Op. 24 (1968)
Naboth's Vineyard, Op. 25 (1968)
Konzertstück, Op. 26 (1969)
Nonomiya, Op. 27 (1969)
Paraphrase for clarinet, Op. 28 (1969)
Symphony in One Movement, Op. 29 (1969)
Shadowplay, Op. 30 (1970)
Concerto for Eleven, Op. 32 (1970)
Sonata about Jerusalem, Op. 31 (1971)
Piano Concerto, Op. 33 (1972)
Chaconne for Wind, Op. 34 (1973)
Lyric Pieces, Op. 35 (1974)
Metamorphosis/Dance, Op. 36 (1974)
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 37 (1976)
Psalm IV, Op. 38a (1976)
Fugue on the Notes of Psalm IV, Op. 38b (1976)
Romanza on the Notes of Psalm IV, Op. 38c (1977)
Babylon the Great is Fallen (Cantata), Op. 40 (1979)
Organ Chaconne, Op. 34a (1979)
Das Gesetz der Quadrille (The Law of the Square Dance),
     Op. 41 (1979)
Sinfonia, Op. 42 (1979)
Deux Etudes, Op. 43 (1981)
Behold the Sun (Opera), Op. 44a (1985)
...a musical offering (J.S.B. 1985)..., Op. 46 (1985)
Two Imitations of Baudelaire, Op. 47 (1985)
Symphony with Chaconne, Op. 48 (1986)
Eve Dreams in Paradise, Op. 49 (1988)
...in real time, Op. 50 (1988)
Sing Ariel, Op. 51 (1990)
String Quartet No. 4, Op. 52 (1990)
The Death of Moses (Cantata), Op. 53 (1992)
Colossos or Panic for orchestra, Op. 55 (1992)
The mouse metamorphosed into a maid for unaccompanied voice,
     Op. 54 (1993)
Arianna, Op. 58 (1995)
Three Songs, Op. 60 (1996)
Schlussgesang for orchestra, Op. 61 (1996)
Quintet - Five Objects Darkly, Op. 62 (1996)
Idées Fixes for ensemble, Op. 63 (1997)
Sur terre, en l'air, Op. 64 (1997) (1997)
Kantan and Damask Drum, Op. 67 (1999)
Piano Quintet, Op. 69 (2000)
Suite, Op. 70 (2000)
...a second musical offering, Op. 71 (2002)
 ...around Stravinsky, Op. 72 (20020
Symmetry Disorders Reach for piano, Op. 73 (2002)
Marching to Carcassonne, Op. 74 (2003)
Adagio (Autoporträt), Op. 75
Dark Days, Op. 76 (2004)
Fantasie, Op. 77 (2005)
Broken Lute, Op. 78 (2006)
Since Brass, nor Stone..., fantasy for string quartet and percussion,
     Op. 80 (2008)
manere, duo for clarinet and violin, Op. 81 (2008)
Overture for ensemble, Op. 82 (2008)
Promised End, opera in twenty-four preludes (scenes) to words from
     Shakespeare's King Lear, Op. 83 (2009)
Broken Psalm for mixed choir (SATB) and organ, Op. 84 (2009)
Turmmusik (Tower Music) for two clarinets, brass, and strings,
     with baritone solo, Op. 85 (2010)
When Adam Fell for orchestra, Op. 89 (2011)
To These Dark Steps / The Fathers are Watching, Op. 90  (2012)
Largo Siciliano, Op. 91 (2012)
 …between the lines… (2013)

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / September 2016

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

September 2016

Volume 23, Number 9


Jacques Hetu / Phillip George

Calendar / For September 2016


Illustration / Jacques Hetu


Editorial Staff

Mark Alburger
EDITOR-PUBLISHER

Harriet March Page
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Patti Noel Deuter
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Erling Wold
WEBMASTER

Elizabeth Agnew
Alexis Alrich
Katherine Buono
Ken Bullock
A.J. Churchill
David Cleary
Jeff Dunn
Phillip George
Elliot Harmon
Brian Holmes
Jeff Kaliss
John Lane
Arel Lucas
Michael McDonagh
Chip Michael
Tom Moore
Carol Marie Reynolds
William Rowland
John Palmer
Lisa Scola Prosek
Cristina Scuderi
Andrew Shapiro
Alice Shields
CORRESPONDENTS


INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC is published monthly by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. ISSN 1534-3219.

Subscription rates in the U.S. are $96.00 per year; subscribers elsewhere should add $48.00 for postage. Single copies of the current volume and back issues are $12.00. Large back orders must be ordered by volume and be pre-paid. Please allow one month for receipt of first issue. Domestic claims for non-receipt of issues should be made within 90 days of the month of publication, overseas claims within 180 days. Thereafter, the regular back issue rate will be charged for replacement. Overseas delivery is not guaranteed. Send orders to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. email: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Typeset in Times New Roman. Copyright 2016 by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC. This journal is printed on recycled paper. Copyright notice: Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC.

The Journal is also online at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com


INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC invites pertinent contributions in analysis, composition, criticism, interdisciplinary studies, musicology, and performance practice; and welcomes reviews of books, concerts, music, recordings, and videos. The journal also seeks items of interest for its calendar, chronicle, comment, communications, opportunities, publications, recordings, and videos sections. Copy should be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11 -inch paper, with ample margins. Authors are encouraged to submit via e-mail.

Prospective contributors should consult The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), in addition to back issues of this journal. Copy should be sent to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com. Materials for review may be sent to the same address.


INFORMATION FOR ADVERTISERS

Send all inquiries to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Jacques Hetu / Phillip George

Jacques Hétu (August 8, 1938, Trois-Riviere, Quebec, Canada - February 9, 2010, Saint-Hippolyte, Quebec, Canada) studied at the University of Ottawa where he was a pupil of Jules Martel from 1955 to 1956.   After this, he attended the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec à Montréal throough 1961, where his teachers includedh Melvin Berman (oboe), Isabelle Delorme (harmony), Jean Papineau-Couture (fugue), Clermont Pépin (composition and counterpoint), and Georges Savaria (piano).  In the summer of 1959 he also took composition lessons with Lukas Foss at Tanglewood Music Center, Lenox, MA.   At the end of his time in the Conservatore, he won several awards, including the first prize at the Quebec Music Festivals composition competition, a grant from the Canada Council, and the Prix d'Europe.  These honors enabled him to pursue studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, France, through 1963 with Henri Dutilleux and at the Paris Conservatory with Olivier Messiaen in the latter two years.

Hétu joined the music faculty at Laval University after this, through 1977.  He taught composition at the University of Montreal in 1972–1973 and 1978–1979.  From 1979 to 2000, he was a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, serving as Music Department director  from 1980 to 1982 and 1986-1988.

He was nominated for Juno Award Best Classical Composition and made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1989,)  and made an Officer of the Order of Canada (2001).

After his death from lung cancer, he was survived by his wife, Jeanne Desaulnier, and five children.  The next month -- on March 3, 2010 --  The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian, premiered his Symphony No. 5, Op. 81. 


Works List

Toccata, Op. 1, 1959
Symphonie pour cordes, string orchestra, Op. 2, 1959
Adagio et Rondo, string quartet, Op. 3 No. 1, 1960
Adagio et Rondo, string orchestra, Op. 3 No. 1a, 1960
Trio, flute, oboe, harpsichord, Op. 3 No. 2, 1960
Symphonie No. 2, large orchestra, Op. 4, 1961
Prélude, large orchestra, Op. 5, 1961
Sonate pour deux pianos, 2 pianos, Op. 6, 1962
Petite Suite, Op. 7, 1962
Variations pour piano, Op. 8, 1964
Rondo, cello, string orchestra, Op. 9, 1967
Quatre Pièces, flute, piano, Op. 10, 1965
Variations pour violon seul, violin, Op. 11, 1967
   (also versions as Variations pour alto seul, viola, Op. 11a, 1967;
   Variations pour violoncelle seul, cello, Op. 11b, 1967)
Double Concerto, violin, piano, small orchestra, Op. 12, 1967

Quintette pour instruments à vent, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon,
   Op. 13, 1967
Quatuor à cordes No. 1, string quartet, Op. 19, 1972
L'Apocalypse, large orchestra, Op. 14, 1967
Concerto No. 1, piano, large orchestra, Op. 15, 1969
Cycle, piano, ensemble (flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon,
   horn, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones), Op. 16, 1969
Passacaille, large orchestra, Op. 17, 1970
Symphonie No. 3, Op. 18, 1971
Les Clartés de la nuit (text by Émile Nelligan), soprano, piano,
   Op. 20, 1972 (also version for soprano, orchestra, Op. 20a, 1986)
Fantaisie, piano, large orchestra, Op. 21, 1973
Les Djinns (text by Victor Hugo), mixed chorus (24–32 voices),
   mixed chorus (80–120 voices), piano, 6 percussion, Op. 22, 1975
Antinomie, Op. 23, 1977
Prélude et Danse, Op. 24, 1977

Rondo varié, violin, Op. 25, 1977
Nocturne, clarinet, piano, Op. 26, 1977
Aria, flute, piano, Op. 27, 1977
Incantation, oboe, piano, Op. 28, 1978
Lied, French horn, piano, Op. 29, 1978
Ballade, Op. 30, 1978
Élégie, bassoon, piano, Op. 31a, 1979
   (version of second movement of Concerto, Op. 31)
Concerto, bassoon, small orchestra, Op. 31, 1979
   (also version of second movement as Élégie, bassoon, piano, Op. 31a)
Mirages, Op. 34, 1981
Sonate pour piano, Op. 35, 1984
Les Abîmes du rêve (text by Émile Nelligan), bass, large orchestra,
   Op. 36, 1982

Concerto, clarinet, small orchestra, Op. 37, 1983
Missa pro trecentesimo anno (text from the Mass),
   mixed chorus, organ, orchestra, Op. 38, 1985
Quatre Interludes, Op. 38a, 1985
Symphonie concertante, flute, oboe, clarinet,
   horn, bassoon, string orchestra, Op. 40, 1986
Suite, guitar, Op. 41, 1986
Variations pour orgue, Op. 42, 1986
Concerto, trumpet, small orchestra, Op. 43, 1987
   (also version for trumpet, symphonic band, Op. 43a, 1994)
Images de la Révolution, large orchestra, Op. 44, 1988
Sérénade, flute, string quartet, Op. 45, 1988
Les Illusions fanées (text by Émile Nelligan), mixed chorus,
   Op. 46, 1988
Poème, string orchestra, Op. 47, 1989

Concerto, Ondes Martenot, orchestra, Op. 49, 1990
Quatuor à cordes No. 2, string quartet, Op. 50, 1991
Concerto, flute, small orchestra, Op. 51, 1991
Le Tombeau de Nelligan, large orchestra, Op. 52, 1992
Le Prix (opera in 1 act, libretto by Yves Beauchemin),
   2 sopranos, mezzo-soprano, 3 tenors, baritone, bass,
   mixed chorus, orchestra, Op. 53, 1992
Scherzo, string quartet, Op. 54, 1992
Symphonie No. 4, Op. 55, 1993
Concerto, guitar, string orchestra, Op. 56, 1994
Concerto, trombone, orchestra, Op. 57, 1995
Sonate pour violon et piano, violin, piano, Op. 58, 1996
Fantaisie, Op. 59, 1996
Sonate pour 13 instruments, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon,
   horn, trumpet, harp, violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano, harpsichord,
   Op. 60, 1996

Concerto, marimba (+ vibraphone), string orchestra, Op. 61, 1997
Sérénade héroïque, French horn, large orchestra, Op. 62, 1998
Sonate pour violoncelle et piano, cello, piano, Op. 63, 1998
Concerto No. 2, piano, orchestra, Op. 64, 1999
Passage (text by the composer), mixed chorus, Op. 65, 1999
Hear my prayer, O Lord (text from Psalm 102), mixed chorus,
   Op. 66, 2000
Fantaisie sur le nom de Bach, flute, Op. 67, 2001
Concerto, organ, large orchestra, Op. 68, 2001
Triple Concerto, violin, cello, piano, large orchestra, Op. 69, 2002
Impromptu, Op. 70, 2003
Sextuor à cordes, 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, Op. 71, 2004
Concerto, oboe (+ English horn), large orchestra, Op. 72, 2004

Trio, clarinet, cello, piano, Op. 73, 2005
Variations concertantes, large orchestra, Op. 74, 2005
Concerto, viola, small orchestra, Op. 75, 2006
Légendes, large orchestra, Op. 76, 2007
Concerto, 2 amplified guitars, small orchestra, Op. 77, 2007
Sur les rives du Saint-Maurice, Op. 78, 2008
Variations sur un thème de Mozart, 3 pianos, orchestra, Op. 79, 2008
Intermezzo, guitar, Op. 80, 2009
Symphonie No. 5, 'Liberté' (text by Paul Éluard),
   mixed chorus, large orchestra, Op. 81, 2009
Trio, oboe, violin, piano, Op. 82, 2009

Calendar / For September 2016

September 23

OPUS 45
There and Back Again
8pm, Saturday, September 24, 2016
Diablo Valley Music Building, Viking Drive, Pleasant Hill, CA

With Feona Lee Jones and The Opus Project Trios, Wind Quintet, and Orchestra

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)         
   A German Requiem: How Lovely, Op. 45, No. 4 (1868)
Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)          
   Capriccio Italien, Op. 45  (1880)
Arthur Foote (1853-1937)            
   Serenade in F major, Op. 45, No. 2 (1914)
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)             
   Partsong from the Greek Anthology, Op. 45, No. 1 (1902)
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859-1935)  
   Shakespeare Sonnet, Op. 45, No. 1(1913)
Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937)          
   Piano Trio, Op. 45 (1922)
Alexander Gretchaninoff (1864-1956)     
   In the Village, Op. 45, No. 1 (1908)
Robert Kahn (1865-1952)             
   Clarinet Trio, Op.45 (1906)
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)         
   Piano Suite ("Luciferiske"), Op. 45, No. 3 (1920)
Jan Sibelius (1865-1957)             
   The Dryad, Op. 45, No. 1 (1910)
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)         
   The Bridal Choice, Op. 45 (1912)
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)        
   Barcarola, Op. 45 (1900)
Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949)              
   Elegie und Round Dance, Op. 45 (1940)
Albert Roussel (1869-1937)            
   String Quartet in D Major, Op. 45 (1932)
Florent Schmitt (1870-1958)     
   Orchestral Song, Op. 45 (1912)
Paul Juon (1872-1940)            
   Triple Concerto, Op. 45 (1912)
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)         
   Piano Piece, Op. 45 (1905)       
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) 
   Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 (1940)
Max Reger (1873-1916)             
   Six Piano Intermezzi, Op. 45 (1900)   
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)     
   String Trio, Op. 45 (1946)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)         
   Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920)
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)        
   Things in Themselves, Op. 45 (1928)           
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)         
   Hin und Zurück, Op. 45 (1927)   
Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)            
   Jonny Spielt Auf, Op. 45 (1927)
Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989)     
   A Dinner Engagement, Op. 45 (1954)
Boris Blacher (1903-1975)             
  Study in Pianissimo, Op. 45 (1954)
Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987)         
   Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 45 (1945)
Benjamin Frankel (1906 -1973)         
   Viola Concerto, Op. 45 (1967)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)     
   The Return of Maxim, Op. 45 (1937)       
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)            
   3 Songs, Op. 45 (1972)
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)         
   Armenian Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 45 (1944)   
John Cage (1912-1992)              
   Tossed As It Is Untroubled (1943)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)         
   The Little Sweep, Op. 45 (1949)   
Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987)        
   Piano Sonatina No. 2, Op.45 (1950)
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)         
   Puneña No. 2 ("Hommage à Paul Sacher"), Op. 45 (1976)
Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)         
   Flute Concerto No. 1, Op. 45 (1954)
Claude Ballif (1924-2004)             
   Prière du Seigneur, Op. 45 (1972)
Robert Muczynski (1929-2010)         
   Wind Quintet, Op. 45: I. Allegro risoluto (1985)
Jacques Hetu (1938-2010)         
   Serenade Quartet, Op. 45 (1988)       
Mark Alburger (b. 1957)             
   Mice and Men, Op. 45 (1992)           

Tickets -- $10 - $20 -- available at the door.   

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC / January 2016

21ST
CENTURY
MUSIC

January 2016

Volume 23, Number 1


Work-in-Progress, 12/16/15


Charles Ives's Symphony No. 4 at c. 100  / Elizabeth Agnew

Calendar / For January 2016

Chronicle / Of November 2015

Recording / Shostakovich Cello Concerti


Illustration / Charles Ives, 1913


Editorial Staff

Mark Alburger
EDITOR-PUBLISHER

Harriet March Page
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Patti Noel Deuter
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Erling Wold
WEBMASTER

Elizabeth Agnew
Alexis Alrich
Katherine Buono
Ken Bullock
A.J. Churchill
David Cleary
Jeff Dunn
Phillip George
Elliot Harmon
Brian Holmes
Jeff Kaliss
John Lane
Arel Lucas
Michael McDonagh
Chip Michael
Tom Moore
Carol Marie Reynolds
William Rowland
John Palmer
Lisa Scola Prosek
Cristina Scuderi
Andrew Shapiro
Alice Shields
CORRESPONDENTS


INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC is published monthly by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. ISSN 1534-3219.

Subscription rates in the U.S. are $96.00 per year; subscribers elsewhere should add $48.00 for postage. Single copies of the current volume and back issues are $12.00. Large back orders must be ordered by volume and be pre-paid. Please allow one month for receipt of first issue. Domestic claims for non-receipt of issues should be made within 90 days of the month of publication, overseas claims within 180 days. Thereafter, the regular back issue rate will be charged for replacement. Overseas delivery is not guaranteed. Send orders to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. email: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Typeset in Times New Roman. Copyright 2016 by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC. This journal is printed on recycled paper. Copyright notice: Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC.

The Journal is also online at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com


INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

21ST-CENTURY MUSIC invites pertinent contributions in analysis, composition, criticism, interdisciplinary studies, musicology, and performance practice; and welcomes reviews of books, concerts, music, recordings, and videos. The journal also seeks items of interest for its calendar, chronicle, comment, communications, opportunities, publications, recordings, and videos sections. Copy should be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11 -inch paper, with ample margins. Authors are encouraged to submit via e-mail.

Prospective contributors should consult The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), in addition to back issues of this journal. Copy should be sent to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com. Materials for review may be sent to the same address.


INFORMATION FOR ADVERTISERS

Send all inquiries to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: mus21stc@gmail.com.

Charles Ives's Symphony No. 4 at c. 100 / Elizabeth Agnew

While the final page of Charles Ives's Symphony No. 4 is dated 1916, it was likely written between 1910 and the mid-1920's, with II. Comedy, perhaps finished as late as 1924.

The work is scored for

2 Piccolos
3 Flutes
2 Oboes (IV.)
3 Clarinets
Alto / Tenor /Baritone Saxophone
3 Bassoons

6 Trumpets
2 Cornets
4 Horns (III. op. solo and IV.)
3 Trombones
Tuba

Chorus SATB (I. and IV.

Harp
Celesta
Piano
Piano 4-Hands
Organ
Ether Organ (most probably Leon Theremin's Keyboard Harmonium)
Triangle
Cymbals
2 Gongs (High/Low)
Snare Drum
Tom-Tom
Bass Drum
Timpani

Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Bass

The Ives Symphony No. 4 is in four movements of drastically disimilar compositional history, duration, instrumentation, and spirit.

The origins of I. Prelude: Maestoso date to 1901, in a now-lost setting of Lowell Mason's

Watchman (1830;

the Advent / Epiphany hymn Watchman, Tell Us of the Night 1825, John Bowring, 1792-1872) for soprano and organ, sung in late November of that year by Annie Wilson (Mrs. Comstock) in a Y.M.C.A. service.  In the summer of 1905, at Saranac Lake, with his classmate (and future brother-in-law), David Twitchell, Ives started a variant of Watchman for horn and strings, also lost.  About a year later, he incoporated Watchman into  

Violin Sonata No. 1: III -- originally designated as No. 2, and ink-dated "Aug. Sept. 1907."

An orchestral version was finished in 1911 at Elk Lake in New York's Adirondack Mountains, which Ives notes in a memo of that year: "The 'Eternal Question' -- Watchman, what of the night? - Pell's, Sept. 4, 1911."

A further setting is found in114 Songs: 44. Watchman!, from 1914.

I. Prelude begins with a fortissimo maestoso bass line (D: Do Ra Mi Me Re Ra De), immediately followed by a military trumpet fanfare (D: Do Sol Do Mi Me) and an inversion of the opening two intervals in violins (Fa Mi Ra - also an important motive in Ives's Piano Sonata No. 1), leading to a pianissimo contrary chamber music of harp, two violins, and viola (E: Mi Re Do Re Mi),

alluding to Mason's Bethany (1856; Nearer, my God, to Thee, 1841;

Sarah Fuller Flower Adams, 1805-1848).

Various shreds of Watchman are suggested (D: Do Re Mi Re Mi Fa Sol), notably in solo cello (A: Do Re Mi Re Do Re Do), in a course identical to the

Joseph Philbrick Webster (1819-1875)

In the Sweet By and By

(1868; Sanford Fillmore Bennett, 1836-1898), before two mostly unison choral verses (Watchman, Tell Us of the Night, 1825; John Bowring, 1792-1872) unfold in slight rhythmic distortions over contrapuntal dreamlike orchestral waves.

Above, a flute takes phrases of the Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)  

Proprior Deo / Nearer to God (D: Mi Re Mi Do Sol La - itself close to Bethany's Mi Re Do Do La La), Thomas E. Perkins's Something for Thee,

the cadential phrase of I Hear Thy Welcome Voice by

Lewis Hartsough (1828-1919), and further strains of Bethany (the outline of M3 seemingy a through-line throughout)-- with Westminster Chimes (1793, Joseph Jowet, 1751-1813, possibly after measures 5-6 of I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" from G.F. Handel's Messiah) on the celesta.

Original Lyrics

Watchman, tell us of the night,
What its signs of promise are.
Traveler, o'er yon mountain's height,
See that glory beaming star.
Watchman, does its beauteous ray
Aught of joy or hope foretell?
Traveler, yes – it brings the day,
Promised day of Israel.

Watchman, tell us of the night;
Higher yet that star ascends.
Traveler, blessedness and light,
Peace and truth its course portends.
Watchman, will its beams alone
Gild the spot that gave them birth?
Traveler, ages are its own;
See, it bursts o'er all the earth.

Watchman, tell us of the night,
For the morning seems to dawn.
Traveler, darkness takes its flight,
Doubt and terror are withdrawn.
Watchman, let thy wanderings cease;
Hie thee to thy quiet home.
Traveler, lo! the Prince of Peace,
Lo! the Son of God is come!

Ives Version

Watchman, tell us of the night,
What the signs of promise are:
Traveller, o'er yon mountain's height,
See that Glory beaming star!
Watchman, ought [sic] of joy or hope

Traveler, yes – it brings the day,
Promised day of Israel.
Dost thou see its beauteous ray?

Ives's "second verse" begins on the sixth line of the original, with the chorus breaking into brief four-part (1 female / 3 male) contrapuntal / homophonic texture at the repeated concluding line -- the assembly dying away in quadruple-pianissimo.

II. Comedy: Allegretto is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne[1804-1864]'s

The Celestial Railroad (1843), itself a response to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progess (1678).  In Ives's projected list of Men of Literature Overtures, he included one on Hawthorne, which he sketched in 1910 at Elk Lake.  This was re-composed into Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Concord"): II. Hawthorne, dated April-October 1911.

The final phantasmagorical Hawthorne march is on the Thomas a'Beckett (1808-1890) Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, which -- while Ives also utilized in the Symphony No. 2 (1902) and A Symphony: New England Holidays: IV. Fourth of July (1913) -- here sounds as a precurser to its use in II. Comedy.  The movement is an orchestral expansion of Ives's piano solo, The Celestial Railroad (1924), and may thus be one of Ives's last orchestra works.  It is his most extreme endeavor in overlapping themes, along the lines of the Holidays: Fourth of July, but more complex in polymetrics and contrary musics.

The complexity of the work requires a second conductor, right from the introductory growls and invocation of hymns (some in quarter tones), which includes Watchman in violins.  George F. Root[1820-1895]'s Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (The Prisoner's Hope, 1864) grows out of a bustling cacophony, only to subside again into a dreamy evocations of Watchman and The Sweet By and By, which alternate with the tramping madness and a suggestion of The Caisson Song (1908, Alfred C Montin (1880 - 1964), until combining surreally.

In the prison cell I sit,
Thinking Mother dear, of you,
And our bright and happy home so far away,
And the tears they fill my eyes
Spite of all that I can do,
Tho' I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Cheer up comrades they will come,
And beneath the starry flag
We shall breathe the air again,
Of the freeland in our own beloved home.

Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail
As the caissons go rolling along.
Up and down, in and out,
Countermarch and right about,
And our caissons go rolling along.
For it's hi-hi-hee in the Field Artillery,
Shout out the number loud and strong.
Till our final ride, It will always be our pride
To keep those caissons a rolling along.

Ragtime, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, more distorted Watchman / Sweet fragments, and the anonymous/undated Reveille (some of this dating back to the earlier Hawthorne material), head towards a "Collapse," where one orchestral group in slow 3/2 initially sychronizes with another 4/4 entourage.  This latter ensemble then accelerates and collapses, waiting for the first posse to catch up and resynchronize.  Another quieter section "a take off here on polite salon music . . . pink teas in Vanity Fair social life" leads to still more Watchman / Sweet, building back up into another rag evocation.

Trumpets punch out the eighth notes of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 (1808) first-movement motif, while trombones raucously intone Beulah Land 

(1875, John Robson Sweney, 1837-1899) and cornets belt out

Massa's in de Cold, Cold, Ground: Down in de Corn Field (1852, Stephen Foster, 1826-1864).

Another quiet section, on Jesus, Lover of my Soul (Martyn, 1834; Simeon Bulkley Marsh, 1798-1875) is violently interrupted by Beulah Land noise and shimmers, before returning to a larger Jesus, Lover passage, filligreed by quarter-tone piano. 

This is shattered again by the finale cacophony of Marching Through Georgia (1865, Henry Clay Work, 1832-1884), Ives's own Country Band March (1905, augmented in Three Places in New England: II. Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut, 1912),  

Ye Christian Heralds (1832, Heinrich Christoph [Charles] Zeuner, 1795-1857 -- its three-note opening corresponding to the Beethoven Fifth),

Yankee Doodle (1780), Turkey in the Straw, Long Long Ago, Reveille, The Irish Washerwoman, and more ragtime.  Aside from the spiritual comedy, this seems also World War I, in patriotism spiralling into madness, concluding with a fizzing away, again reminiscent of the Holidays: Fourth.

III. Fugue: Andante moderato con moto is an elaboration of a keyboard work Ives wrote at Yale for Horatio Parker (1863-1919),

on Mason's Missionary Hymn (1823; From Greenland's Icy Mountains, 1819, Reginald Heber, 1783-1826),

with one countersubject on Oliver Holden's Coronation (1765-1844;

All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name, 1779, Edward Perronet, 1726-1792).  Scholastic in stretto, mirror, pedal-point, and augmentation -- it was re-composed for String Quartet No. 1 ("From the Salvation Army"): I. Andante con moto (1902).  In the orchestral version, first composed in 1909 at Elk Lake, the fugue ends with a brief interior-phrase quotation of Mason's Antioch (1839, derived from G.F. Handel motives from Messiah, 1741;  

Joy to the World. 1719, Isaac Watts, 1674-1748).  Ives characterized the work as "an expression of the reaction of life into formalism and ritualism."  Paradoxically, because of its juxtaposition with the other three complex section, Ives biographer Jan Swafford calls this "in a way the most revolutionary movement of all."

The composer characterized IV. Finale: Very slowly – Largo maestoso as "an apotheosis of the preceding content, in terms that have something to do with the reality of existence and its religious experience." The music dates back to 1901, when Ives was organist at New York's Central Presbyterian Church (then at Broadway and 57th) when he wrote the now-lost Memorial slow march on Mason's Bethany / Nearer, my God -- 'a slow, out-of-doors march . . . in part, the remembrance of the way the hymn sounded in some old Camp Meeting services . . . also had something to do with  . . . a scene one evening in Cafe Boulevard, New York, after [William] McKinley's assassination in [September] 1901; Everybody stood up and sang this hymn."  String Quartet No. 2: III ends with a mountain-top vision of Bethany and Westminster Chimes, an expanded D Major over descending whole-tone scales in cello.  The symphonic movement opens with a spatially separated percussion section that performs in a contrary tempo from the main ensemble -- sychronization between the two groups changing over the course of the movement in specific ways.

Choral forces return, after their absence since the first movement, now for a wordless dream on interior phrases of Bethany / Nearer, my God, (the chorus here and previously thereby on material exclusively derived from Mason), which, by this point, certainly would have called to mind the sinking of the Titanic (April 14-15, 1913), and the yearning for peace during World War I (1914-18).

I-II were first performed on a Pro Musica International Referendum Concert, by 50 members of the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Eugene Gooosens, January 29, 1927, Town Hall, New York.  While this ensemble was sufficient for the chamber scoring of the first movement, the second requires almost twice as many performers.  It was Ives's only experience of the symphony live.

Henry Bellamann's note to this performance (very much in the spirit of Ives's own characterization), as his tone of voice and use of language is obvious throughout) states, "The aesthetic program of the work is that of many of the greatest literary and musical masterpieces of the world -- the searching questions of What? and Why? which the spirit of man asks of life. This is particularly the sense of the prelude. The . . .  succeeding movements are the diverse answers in which existence replies" (In Memos, Ives misquotes Bellamann's program note by attributing to it the previous description of the Finale).

An arrangement of III by Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) was performed on May 10, 1933, again in New York.

The symphony did not have a complete performance until Leopold Stokowski and the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, April 26, 1965... 11 years after Ives's death.

It was soon recorded by the same forces for the first time for the Columbia label.

The 1965 performance score, published by G. Schirmer (AMP), has recently been augmented by the new Charles Ives Society Critical Edition, 2011 (edited by William Brooks, James Sinclair, Kenneth Singleton, Wayne Shirley, and Thomas M. Brodhead), which presents the music in the largely unperformable but compositionally intriguing state in which Ives left it in his manuscripts, and then a necessary corresponding Performance Score (ed. Thomas M. Brodhead), which was premiered at the Lucerne Festival, August 26, 2012, under the direction of Peter Eötvös.