Afterpost: Gregg Smith & Co.show us that Ives's "bells-and-whistles" version really adds a dimension to "General William Booth Enters into Heaven"

Choral masterworker Gregg Smith (1931-2016)

Archie Drake, bass; Gregg Smith Singers, Columbia Chamber Orchestra, Gregg Smith, cond. Columbia-CBS, recorded in Legion Hall, Hollywood, May 4, 1966
[NOTE: We're going to hear the performance again, with printed vocal text.]

by Ken

My original plan was just to add what follows as an "afterthought" ("Some Afterthoughts on the Performances") to the post "'Jesus came from the courthouse door': 'General William Booth Enters into Heaven' and other, variously irresistible Ives songs," with a note like this:

I'm sure you're tired of hearing about how I don't have a chance to hear audio clips in their post places until a post is posted, and even then not till I can get past the exhaustion of birthing the post. That said, a couple of thoughts.

So I thought it would be better to spin those performances out into an "afterpost."

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

Approaching Mahler's heartbreaking "Kindertotenlieder"

For the final stanza of "In diesem Wetter," the last of the Kindertotenlieder, Mahler switches from minor to major


Thomas Hampson, baritone; Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live, October 1988

In this weather, in this storm, in this bluster,
they're resting as if in their mother's house,
not frightened by any storm,
by God's hand protected,
they're resting as if in their mother's house.

by Ken

I'm trying to think -- among the infinity of loose ends and gaps we'll leave when the tent folds up -- which few among them we might still deal with. It seems rather hopeless, but it has occurred to me that for all the Mahler we've listened to (I always want to compile a master list, but it's a big job; would it be of interest to anyone?), we haven't done the song cycle Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children).

However, we have done the final song, "In diesem Wetter" ("In this weather"), in a December 2011 post devoted to "The old minor-to-major switcheroo as practiced by Mahler, Schubert, and Donizetti" (preview and main post), in which we listened to the opening song of Schubert's great song cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey), "Gute Nacht" ("Good night"), and Nemorino's haunting aria "Una furtiva lagrima" ("A furtive tear") from Donizetti's Elixir of Love in addition to "In diesem Wetter."


TO APPROACH THE KINDERTOTENLIEDER,
WE'RE GOING BACK TO "IN DIESEM WETTER"