Last week I noted: "I think we'll be spending more time with the Ives songs." Amazingly, this prediction has come true!

YES, OUR NEW OLD FRIEND GERALD FINLEY IS BACK,
AND HE'S ABOUT TO BLOW THE ROOF OFF THE JOINT

IVES: "They are there! (Fighting for the people's new free world)" (1942-43, solo version)

Gerald Finley, bass-baritone; Magnus Johnston, violin; Julius Drake, piano. Hyperion, recorded Feb. 16-20, 2007

by Ken

In last week's post, "A touch of Ives (featuring a bunch of questions -- not least: Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)," I concluded a batch of quick hits on the Ives songworld with the unassuming note: "NOTE: I think we'll be spending more time with the Ives songs." Which I thought would be safe, because I had a number of threads I wanted to pursue, starting as usual with several that had failed to make it into the current post. What I didn't anticipate, even after plugging away at the material all week, was that I would never quite figure out --

HOW DO WE REJOIN OUR LISTEN-TO OF SELECT IVES SONGS?

What I came up with, sort of, was a quick version -- no multiple performances, no printed song texts -- of the new material that would go above the byline, which would then be repeated in more typical, more discursive Sunday Classics form. And I stuck to this seemingly simple agenda long after it became clear that it wasn't going to work. Even pursuing only a couple of the threads I anticipated from last week, that "above the byline" run-through was stretching out to the horizon.

Unfortunately, "Plan B" turned out to be a cheat version of "Plan A": The so-called quick run-through was dragged down below the byline, where it no longer needed to be quite so compact, and from it a single performance was plucked out and made the post opener. The picture of Gerald Finley -- like the picture of Sam Ramey we're going to see in a bit -- was already ready, from a still-earlier conception of this post that had long since gone by the wayside. (I just had to find them, among the several versions-in-progress of this continuation post that had already sprouted.

So here we are, basically pursuing that rickety, largely discredited Plan B, which continues with several proposed options for rejoining our listen-to of select Ives songs.

(1) We heard Donald Gramm sing "Serenity" with an Aaron Copland intro; we could hear the other two songs from that TV group

A touch of Ives (featuring a bunch of questions -- not least: Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

EARLY TUESDAY UPDATE, with (1) expanded post title; (2) added performance of "Serenity" by Donald Gramm (introduced by Aaron Copland); (3) extra-credit "Questions for Reflection" at the end; (4) smaller touches of assorted sorts here and there

IVES: "Serenity" (1919)

O, Sabbath rest of Galilee!
O, calm of hills above,
where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
the silence of eternity,
interpreted by love.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease:
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess,
the beauty of thy peace.

-- text by John Greenleaf Whittier

"Serenity" was arranged from a sketch of an ensemble "song" earlier than May 1911 and may well be connected to Ives's projected Whittier Overture, one of his "Men of Literature" series. He suggested this trance-like piece was best sung as a unison chant, over its repetitive chiming accompaniment figure.

-- Calum MacDonald, from his Hyperion booklet note

"Serenity" has a vocal line that hovers between just a few notes, following the natural speech rhythm of Whittier's poem in a very subtle and touching way. It's a truly inspired song. I use that word rarely, but I can use it in relation to "Serenity."

-- Aaron Copland, introducing Donald Gramm's TV performance

Jan DeGaetani, mezzo-soprano; Gilbert Kalish, piano. Nonesuch, recorded c1975

Gerald Finley, bass-baritone; Julius Drake, piano. Hyperion, recorded in All Saints Church (Durham Road), East Finchley, London, Nov. 10-12, 2004

[orch. John Adams] Thomas Hampson, baritone; members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. RCA, from MTT's Charles Ives: An American Journey CD, recorded live in Davies Symphony Hall, Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 1999

JUST ADDED: Bonus performance, introduced by Aaron Copland

Donald Gramm, having finished with his part of "Serenity," listens as Richard Cumming sculpts the song's brief but haunting final phrases.

[introduction by Aaron Copland; song at 0:20] Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Richard Cumming, piano. TV performance (you can watch here; perhaps from NBC, Nov. 29, 1964?)

by Ken

I know this has been a long time coming, and this may seem like a modest payoff, but "Serenity" is a special kind of song, and I think there's a lot to take in from our performers, who include our new budding favorite Gerald Finley, who I promised in the last post, "Some funny things happened on the way through Ives's Holidays," would be leading us into our confrontation with Charles Ives, and one of Sunday Classics' most beloved singers, Jan DeGaetani.


WONDER WHY JAN DeGAETANI IS SO TREASURED HERE?

Glad you wondered! It's a perfect excuse to take yet another listen to this jaw-droppingly radiant performance, with some pretty amazingly concentrated and songfully articulated piano-playing by her longtime piano partner, one of America's most distinguished pianists, Gil Kalish.

Some funny things happened on the way through Ives's Holidays

Among which the nicest thing was that
we ran into bass-baritone Gerald Finley

In recital at New York City's Alice Tully Hall, 2012

[photo by Richard Termine/New York Times]

Gerald Finley, bass-baritone; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra. LSO Live, recorded live in the Barbican, Apr. 29-30, 2005

by Ken

So there we were ("Decoration Day greetings -- with 'old New England'-style memories provided for us by Charles Ives"), making typically (for this operation) unsteady one-step-forward, several-steps sideways progress toward Schumann's Humoreske, the final step in our Radu Lupu remembrance ("We're still targeting Radu Lupu's Schumann Humoreske, but first we're going to detour . . ."). Really, could we let another Decoration Day (probably better known lo this past half-century as Memorial Day) pass without taking note of Charles Ives's holiday musical reminiscence? From which it seemed only natural once and for all to retrace and then complete our circuit of the four remembrance pieces that make up Ives's Holidays Symphony.

It was while I was laboring on that detour down Ives alley that things started going haywire, with one thing leading to another and then another, until by happy chance we were arranging to hear first one and then two Ives songs sung by Canada's Gerald Finley, from the 61 he's recorded on his not one but two Ives song CDs. A fresh encounter with Gerald F seemed an altogether pleasanter prospect than the piling-up Ives craziness, or for that matter the hard-to-penetrate Schumann-piano perplex.

While Sunday Classics can hardly claim Gerald F as an "old friend" of Sunday Classics, we have heard him in some choice musical situations. For example, back when we were remembering conductor Bernard Haitink, and dipped into his 1980 and 2005 live recordings of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, Gerald F was the 2005 bass soloist, and so we've already heard the magical moment I've pulled out above: when the symphony discovered that it could sing!


WE HEARD GERALD F. IN ANOTHER COLLEGIAL SETTING