About this Ives thing, we can do it the easy way, or the hard way; or maybe we have to do it both ways

[MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: The post is more or less reconstructed (if you missed the earlier notice, I cleverly overwrote an essentially complete version of the post with an earlier file that contained just the opening), but I need some sleep before even attempting to read it. I should also find a link for the commentaries Ives included in the Concord score (which he had published himself, along with the volume of Essays Before a Sonata).
[MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: I've fixed some stuff and added some stuff, including a third Decoration Day recording (the Zinman). -- Ken]

(1) A taste of THE EASY WAY

Not quite half a minute from the "B" section, "Rather Sad," of Ives's song "Memories" -- from two performances we've heard and a third we haven't:


Jan DeGaetani, mezzo-soprano; Gilbert Kalish, piano. Nonesuch, released 1976

Roberta Alexander, soprano; Tan Crone, piano. Etcetera, recorded in the Netherlands, released 1984

Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano; Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano. EMI-Warner Classics, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, Nov. 6-8, 2003

and: (2) A taste of THE HARD WAY

Jeremy Denk plays "The Alcotts," the third -- and much the user-friendliest -- movement of Ives's Concord Sonata, apparently an encore at the 92nd Street Y, New York City, Dec. 3, 2011. (Watch it here - with applause!)

by Ken

We've got to get the Ives thing back on track. It's hard, but we'll just have to will our way through it.

As suggested above, we've already heard the complete performances of Ives's two-part song "Memories" from which the first two excerpts above are drawn, and of course we're going to hear all three performances complete, along with some others, though we'll be focusing on one in particular. Can you guess which? Maybe it'll be clearer when we hear their full "B" sections. For now, I don't think much more needs to be said about this almost excruciatingly beautiful half-minute of words set to music. Through the magic of the singer's memories, in just this bit of the song, I think we can see and hear her uncle, and understand his importance to her.

So that's our taste of the "easy" part of an Ives reckoning, and when we come back to it we're going to be sampling and resampling a number of Ives songs. Of the "hard" part, I've offered, in "The Alcotts" from Ives's massive (generally in the 45-50-minute range) Concord Sonata what seems to me the most painless sample of a problem I realize I run into a lot with Ives, as happened when I stacked Central Park in the Dark on top of a couple of other short orchestral works, Decoration Day (one of the components of the Holidays Symphony, which you'll recall the composer always thought of as potentially either free-standing or composite) and The Unanswered Question.

You remember them:

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.