The Classical Music Book

254

STAND UP AND TAKE

YOUR DISSONANCE

LIKE A MAN

SYMPHONY NO. 4 ( 1916 ), CHARLES EDWARD IVES

M

any of the manuscripts of

the American composer

Charles Ives consist of a

patchwork of cutouts pasted over

new ideas. Ives often raided his

own compositions for inspiration,

reusing parts of them or sticking

them into others. As a result, many

of his compositions sound like

collage—different musical

fragments layered on top of each

other. Many of these were scraps of

music that he heard in his youth—

hymns of the Pilgrim Fathers,

gospel tunes, and brass band music.

Ives loved to listen to the amateur

music making in his hometown of

Danbury, Connecticut—especially

the local band and its rivals from

nearby towns, which, on national

holidays, would assemble within

earshot of each other. Ives not only

enjoyed the cacophony of different

tunes being played simultaneously

but later set out to reproduce in his

own works exactly what he heard,

as in his Holidays s y mphony.

Literary influences

Ives lived a mere 150 miles (240 km)

from Concord, Massachusetts—the

epicenter of the Transcendentalist

literary movement that included

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel

Hawthorne, Louisa M. Alcott,

and Henry David Thoreau. Their

works promoted the belief that true

knowledge could not be attained by

studying religion or academia but

rather came from reflection and

contemplation of the self. Inspired

by their ideas, Ives published his

Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord,”

in 1919, comprising movements

named for each of the key writers.

In the early 1920s—during

which time Ives worked alongside

fellow experimental composers

Henry Cowell and Carl Ruggles to

spearhead progressive American

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Collage

BEFORE

1787 Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart simultaneously

employs four separate

orchestras in different time

signatures for Don Giovanni.

1912 Igor Stravinsky “pastes”

a chord of a dominant seventh

on E-flat over a chord of F-flat

major in Le Sacre du printemps

and causes audience outrage.

AFTER

1928 Henry Cowell composes

his Concerto for Piano and

Orchestra, whose three

movements are titled

“Polyharmony,” “Tone Cluster,”

and “Counter Rhythm.”

1967–1969 Luciano Berio

composes his Sinfonia, the

third movement of which is a

collage of musical quotations.

Why tonality as such should

be thrown out for good I can’t

see. Why it should always

be present I can’t see. It

depends, it seems to me ...

on what one is trying to do.

Charles Ives

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