Violinist and conductor Pekka Kuusisto calls in sick for the rest of 2022 -- but we get to hear him play Ives anyway

Violinist-conductor Pekka K. posted this Facebook announcement Tuesday -- one of the more human (and humane) uses of social media I've encountered.

by Ken

And on Wednesday, when The Strad passed along to its e-mail list Pekka K.'s announcement that he's calling in sick, some background was filled in about his "busy" 2022. There's been a lot of the good kind of busyness on multiple professional fronts: "In addition to violin performance engagements including at the BBC Proms, [he] was named principal guest conductor and artistic co-director at the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra." Then there was busyness of the pretty awful kind: "In his personal life, cancer claimed both his mother and his brother Jaakko within two months in the spring of 2022."

Yikes! Makes you wonder whether the mere five weeks or so he's carved out, which of course includes the holidays, when you figure he may not have been that heavily booked, is enough of a breather, especially when you consider the moving and shaking he had to do to get his sick leave.


IT SO HAPPENS THAT PEKKA K. WAS ALREADY
LURKING IN THE SUNDAY CLASSICS PILE-UP

If we're musical-lark-harking, we really need to count the number of: (1) "hark"s and (2) stanzas ["finally" (?) updated version]

[SUNDAY'S ORIGINAL "CONSTRUCTION-ZONE" NOTE: Proceed at your own risk. (It's the usual thing. I've gotta, and I mean just gotta, be able to see 'n' hear this thing with the audio clips in place.)]

[MONDAY "FINALLY (?) UPDATED VERSION" NOTE: With all those elements in place, I'm content to leave this post more or less as-was, with occasional added comments -- plus the promise of a follow-up focusing on the Schubert "Ständchen," even venturing into the totally unrelated but much better-known "Schubert Ständchen," the one from Schwanengesang. -- Ed.]

*          *          *

Shakespeare, you'll recall, wrote just one stanza of "Hark, hark the lark" for Act II, Scene 3, of Cymbeline. We've already heard these two very different musical settings (in, admittedly, very different German translations), but not these performances. Let's listen just to this much.

"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
and Phoebus 'gins arise,
his steeds to water at those springs
on chaliced flowers that lies;
and winking Mary-buds begin
to ope their golden eyes:
with every thing that pretty is,
my lady sweet, arise:
arise, arise!"

-- Cloten's song from Cymbeline, Act II, Scene 3

(1) "Hark, hark!" ("Hark" total = 2)

SCHUBERT: "Ständchen" (Serenade): "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätherblau" ("Hark, hark, the lark in heaven's blue"), D. 889

[German translation by August Wilhelm von Schlegel]

Rolf Reinhardt, piano. Deutsche Schallplatten-Gemeinschaft, recorded 1962

(2) Just a single "Hark!" ("Hark" total = 1)

NICOLAI: The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act II, Scene 4: romance, Fenton, "Horch', die Lerche singt im Hain" ("Hark, the lark sings in the meadow")

[German translation by Ferdinand Mayerhofer]

Bavarian State Orchestra, Robert Heger, cond. EMI, recorded Feb.-Mar. 1963

Wait, what about the singer? Probably you recognized him right away. If not, better still! You're making the acquaintance of somebody really special -- we'll have full credits when we hear these performances in full. (You no doubt noticed that I cut them off once the stanza taken over from Shakespeare was done.)

by Ken

You may remember that last week, in writing about that fine English pianist Imogen Cooper's October 2022 choices for BBC Music Magazine's "Music that changed me" feature (choices that "not only genuinely did change her life but make glorious listening for us"), I mentioned that even as I was discovering in the magazine feature that Dame Imogen is the daughter of the distinguished English musicologist and critic Martin Cooper, I happened to be perusing her father's lengthy and informative booklet essay for the Decca recording of Otto Nicolai's opera The Merry Wives of Windsor conducted by Rafael Kubelik for yet another long-simmering Sunday Classics project.

Which is to say: a follow-up to the October 16 post, in which I wrote about a long-long-ago SC post gathering what I think of as the three great musical lark depictions: Haydn's Lark Quartet, Vaughan Williams's rhapsody for violin and orchestra The Lark Ascending, and the gorgeous "romance" from Nicolai's Merry Wives, "Horch', die Lerche singt im Hain" ("Hark, the lark is singing in the meadow," derived from Shakespeare's Cymbeline song "Hark, hark, the lark"), in which the hopelessly-love-besotted young Fenton sings a wake-up serenade to his adored Anna Reich.

I was angling to exhume the old "lark" post and restore it to working order, for which I started by making a pile of new audio clips, only to discover I couldn't figure out how to merge my "then" and "now" selves for such a rehab job. Instead what I set out to do was to spit the "lark" pile into instrumental larks (Haydn's and Vaughan Williams's) and "singing" larks (Nicolai's and a fourth musical lark I'd added to the mix: Schubert's "Ständchen" (Serenade), "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätherblau" of -- yes! -- "Hark, hark, the lark."

In that Merry Wives introductory note, my eye stuck on Martin Cooper suggestion that Fenton's romance is "almost worthy of Schubert." As I think about it, I think this makes a good deal of sense, but what stopped me was the coincidence (?) that Schubert himself had actually done his own "Hark, hark, the lark" setting -- and it's nothing like Nicolai's. Which brings us to the question of how many "hark"s we can count in the Nicolai and Schubert settings.

In last week's tracing of Imogen Cooper's "Music that changed me," I always intended to pluck some samples of Dame Imogen's piano-playing from the SC archive

by Ken

I got so caught up in arranging our musical examples to enable us to trace Dame Imogen's five choices for "Music that changed me" that I just never got around to plucking those samples out of the archive. So, here are some samples.

MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A, K. 488:
i. Allegro

Piano Concerto No. 9, in E-flat, K. 271:
ii. Andantino

Northern Sinfonia, Imogen Cooper, piano and cond. Avie Records, recorded live in Hall One of the Sage Gateshead, Gateshead (across the River Tyne from Newcastle-upon-Tyne), England, Oct. 18-20, 2005

Try listening to just the orchestral opening of each of these concerto movements, up to the entrance of the piano. Of course, in the case of the first movement of K. 488, this means the entire exposition, and just listen to the way the conductor shapes the music: so flowing yet soulful, unfussy yet singing in gripping musical poetry.

Then listen to what happens when the soloist enters, taking over the material the orchestra has just introduced us to. Isn't it devilish how uncannily the two statements dovetail, and yet they're not quite the same, because, after all, an orchestra and a solo piano don't "hear" music exactly the same way -- and so the working out of the whole movement is set up: I think the basic reason I love Mozart's piano concertos so much is that somehow or other his unique dramatic imagination oversees them in much the say it does his great operas -- and I realize that that statement of the exposition of K. 488 could be the work of a great opera conductor.

All these musical roles are being played, of course, by one person: our pianist-conductor. Of course K. 488 is a masterpiece, but it isn't one of the Mozart piano concertos I eternally hunger for. Performed this way, though . . . .

K. 271, however, is one of the Mozart piano concertos I just plain adore. It doesn't come competely out of nowhere; we can hear intimations of it in any number of works Mozart composed shortly before it, including its predecesor, the Concerto No. 8 in C, K. 246. And yet, K. 271 explodes in at least my consciousness that had never existed before and maybe would never exist again -- except that Mozart kept performing this feat over and over. There are so many great slow movements among the Mozart piano concertos, and once again in her dual role as conductor and soloist Cooper leaves no doubt that the Andantino of K. 271 can stand with any of its successors.


GETTING INTIMATE WITH BRAHMS

SC fave Imogen Cooper's choices of "Music that changed me" not only genuinely did change her life but make glorious listening for us

[ALERT: This evocative poster isn't entirely relevant to our topic.]

We hear the implacable Rigoletto Prelude -- our formal invitation to what we'll hear Imogen Cooper describe as the opera's "dark rich vistas" -- led first by Rafael Kubelik, from his beautifully conducted La Scala-DG Rigoletto of July 1964; and then at higher voltage by Georg Solti, from his June 1963 Rigoletto made in Rome with the RCA Italiana Chorus and Orchestra.

"For some reason the Evening Standard photographer was there, and there's a photograph in the family album of me with big round cheeks, wearing a polka-dot taffeta dress, standing smiling on the steps up to the Crush Bar."

-- Dame Imogen Cooper, in BBC Music Magazine's "Music
that changed me" feature for October 2022, on attending a
Covent Garden Rigoletto in the early 1950s -- at age three!

by Ken

Yes, yes, we've got all kinds of business pending, so rest assured that everything that's "in the works" is still there, and in most cases growing even as we (and they) wait. Meanwhile, this is an idea that has been gnawing at me every since my October issue of BBC Music Magazine gasped its exhausted way into my mailbox after its arduous Atlantic crossing -- arriving, it always seems to me, about the same time the next month's issue has begun circulating on the other side of the ocean.

"Music that changed me," I should explain, is a feature that appears on the magazine page inside the back cover of each issue, where a wonderfully nutty assortment of folks -- professional musicians, folks known for work in other fields with a known side-interest in music, and folks known for work in other fields whose musical predilections are wholly unknown to most of us -- share with an assigned interviewer a selection of pieces of music that have, well, changed them. (Do I have to add that many of the folks who are bona fide "celebrities" on their side of the pond are entirely unknown to me? This can be fun too, because even as I'm learning about their musical passions I'm busy trying to figure out who the heck they are.)

I confess that "Music that has changed me" has become a feature I check out fairly early in my perusal of the magazine just plucked out of the mailbox. And certainly my interest shot up when I saw that for October the subject was Imogen Cooper, a pianist whose deep culture, musical sophistication, and passion for clear musical communication have been marked here on multiple occasions. It was a special pleasure to see her name appear in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours list, making her Dame Imogen (a form of address she doesn't seem to have much use for).


DAME IMOGEN'S "MUSIC THAT CHANGED ME" NOT
JUST MEETS BUT WELL EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS

Geoff Nuttall (1965-2022)

"Geoff was an inspired artist whose loyalty to his chosen passions and people was legendary. . . . Geoff had an energetic and spiritual connection to music that rubbed off on anyone lucky enough to witness him play."

-- from a statement by Geoff's St. Lawrence String Quartet-mates,
reported in an Oct. 20 news post on the website of The Strad
(you can read the full statement on the SLSQ website)

The St. Lawrence String Quartet (violinists Geoff Nuttall and Owen Dalby, violist Lesley Robertson, and cellist Christopher Costanza) plays the first movement, Allegro con spirito, of Haydn's Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3, in Stanford University's Bing Concert Hall. (The May 2017 YouTube posting says, "The complete Op. 20 will be made available online for free.")

If you watch the intense Haydn Op. 20, No. 3 clip (above), which accompanies the obituary from the esteemed chronicle of all things string-instrment-related, The Strad (below), and read in the obit what all Geoff Nuttall was up to in his crowded musical life, I think it will strike you too that 56 was way too early for his departure. Kindest thoughts to his families both actual and musical.-- Ken

Just so you know what we're up to: Three familiar larks, a bonus lark, and (oh yes!) Death and a maiden

Alauda (the Eurasian or Oriental skylark)

"[Larks] have more elaborate calls than most birds, and often extravagant songs given in display flight. These melodious sounds (to human ears), combined with a willingness to expand into anthropogenic habitats -- as long as these are not too intensively managed -- have ensured larks a prominent place in literature and music, especially the Skylark in northern Europe and the Crested Lark and Calandra Lark in southern Europe." -- Wikipedia

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Lark Ascending (romance for
violin and orchestra)

Jean Pougnet, violin; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, Oct. 21, 1952

Hugh Bean, violin; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, Mar. 1, 1967

[NOTE: Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983) of course had a warm relationship with Ralph Vaughan Williams, and remains for me on the whole his most persuasive recorded exponent. And much as I love the more spacious and colorful 1967 recording (which was my first Lark Ascending), with a suitably engaged performance of the solo violin part by New Philharmonia concertmaster (among his wide range of musical activities) Hugh Bean (1929-2003), I'm happy to have as well the more streamlined 1952 one, which though mono still sounds awfully good, and has a really subtly inflected solo performance by Jean Pougnet (1907-1968), whose unsummarizably diverse personal and professional history is worth looking into. -- Ed.]

by Ken

A couple of further projects cropped up in last week's, er, post, "Taking our good old time with the Gabrieli String Quartet." Yes, I know, I'm still supposed to be going over the whole thing to make a proper post out of all the ingredients, and I really, really still mean to -- any day now, or maybe any week. What mattered most to me was that the music was, or at least should have been (I make no assumptions about what's there till I muster the courage to look at it), all in place.


FIRST, WE'RE IN THE GRIP OF . . . LARKMANIA!

Taking our good old time withthe Gabrieli String Quartet

[STILL STITCHING THE THING TOGETHER, BUT THE MUSIC IS ALL IN PLACE (I THINK!)]

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: I'm still stitching, and have to pause the effort. As it turned out, there was more music added, but I think now it's all here. (Further consideration of Schubert's song "Death and the Maiden," which we hear here, will come in a separate post.

The Gabrieli Quartet of the era 1969-86: violinists Kenneth Sillito and Brendan O'Reilly, cellist Keith Harvey, and violist Ian Jewel, whom we heard last week playing the first and second movements of . . .

BRAHMS: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115:
ii. Adagio


Keith Puddy, clarinet; Gabrieli Quartet (Kenneth Sillito and Brendan O'Reilly, violins; Ian Jewel, viola; Keith Harvey, cello). Classics for Pleasure-EMI, released 1970

by Ken

It was over the identification of the players in this recording, for the EMI-affiliated budget-price Classics for Pleasure label, that I got bogged down in last week's "Do I hear a clarinet?" In the Gabrieli's early recordings, strangely, the individual musicians weren't identified, and even in a CD reissue still weren't. As regular readers know, in this department we like to know who the people are who are performing for us.

For three-fourths of the early Gabrieli String Quartet there's no problem. From its founding, in 1966 or 1967 (we'll come back to this in a moment), until the departure of its founding first violinist two decades later, there was only one change of personnel: Sometime in 1969 the original second violinist, Claire Simpson, gave way to Brendan O'Reilly. I don't know when in 1969, but I do know, at least according to the original Classics for Pleasure LP label (which we saw last week), that the Brahms Clarinet Quintet recording was published (I still don't know when it was made) sometime in 1970, the year Classics for Pleasure was born. Was there time for Brendan O. to take his place with the quartet in time for the recording? Or might Claire S. still have been in place?

Admittedly, I further confused the point by mis-associating an entirely other young violin-playing Claire Simpson, who suffered a gruesome fate at the knife-wielding hands of a jealous ex-boyfriend, with the Gabrieli's second violinist. I thought I knew why Claire S. had left the Gabrieli; now I have no idea, just that according to Wikipedia a Simpson-to-O'Reilly succession happened sometime in 1969. However . . . .


A NEW CONFUSION ARISES IN MY GABRIELI TIMELINE

It surprised me that one of the Gabrieli Quartet's earliest recordings should have been a quintet with a clarinet soloist. Now it appears that before they recorded the Brahms quintet -- as much as three years before -- they had recorded the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, also with Keith Puddy. And now I realize that the association with Keith P. actually predates the formation of the Gabrieli String Quartet. In a 2003 interview for the Internet Cello Society, Keith Harvey, speaking of his time as principal cello with the English Chamber Orchestra (after some five years as the very young principal cello of the London Philharmonic) recalled:

During my time in the English Chamber Orchestra, the co-leader Kenneth Sillito and I, together with the pianist John Streets and clarinettist Keith Puddy, formed the Gabrieli Ensemble, which later became the Gabrieli String Quartet. In the Ensemble, we performed Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time at least two hundred times. The composer was present at one of these performances and wrote a glowing appreciation.

Let's leave for another the alarming image of four people performing the Quartet for the End of Time, in a fairly short span of time, 200-plus times. (It's not a terribly long piece, really, but in performance it always seems to me to last for two or three weeks. It amazes me that a piece can be simultaneously so tedious and so repulsive.) So Keith P. was already partnering with Kenneth S. and Keith H. before there even was a Gabrieli String Quartet!

A theory about the quartet's origin date: Maybe 1966 is when the oddly configured quartet calling itself the Gabrieli Ensemble was born in 1966, and 1967 the Gabrieli String Quartet in 1967. Of course this doesn't leave an awful lot of time for those 200-plus performances of the Quartet for the End of Time. So all we can say for sure is that somewhere in there the transformation took place. And in any case, it's interesting that the year 1967 should have popped up. Because --


LET'S GET BACK TO THE MOZART CLARINET QUINTET

Do I hear a clarinet?

Here, more or less, is where we're going to wind up
[I know I sometimes (or maybe often!) keep it to myself -- make it a little surprise! -- where we're headed, musically speaking, but not this time. -- Ken]

i. Allegro [no exposition repeat]
ii. Adagio [at 9:07]

Keith Puddy, clarinet; Gabrieli Quartet (Kenneth Sillito and Brendan O'Reilly (probably, but possibly Claire Simpson), violins; Ian Jewel, viola; Keith Harvey, cello). Classics for Pleasure-EMI, recorded in the U.K., released 1970

But this is where our story -- and there is a little story -- starts

Wait, the saxophone's a Woodwind Family member? Hmm . . . okay, sorta.

But really, at the moment it's just two Family members we're interested in.

Duo in C for Clarinet and Bassoon --
i. Allegretto
ii. Larghetto sostenuto [at 3:49]
iii. Rondo: Allegretto [at 5:58]

Members of the Melos Ensemble of London. EMI-Warner Classics, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, October 1969

by Ken

Yes, yes, Ives and all of that. I'm still trying to make the transition from "Ives the easy way" to "Ives the hard way," moving from the Second to the Third Symphony, with a dip into the violin-and-piano sonatas (and maybe the string quartets?); with the Fourth Symphony and the Concord Piano Sonata looming on the horizon. Though I've also been wondering whether we oughtn't to go back to the First Symphony, so often dismissed as merely Ives's "student" symphony.

Anyway, in some fashion yet to be worked out, that's all coming!

Meanwhile, there was this EMI "double fforte" double-CD set that somehow found its way to a sitting-around-doing-nothing situation. But before we continue with our "little story," a challenge: your best guess (unless you know, in which case it's not much of a challenge, is it?) at to whether --

the charming little clarinet-and-bassoon duo we just heard is by: (a) Haydn, (b) Mozart, (c) Beethoven, (d) Schubert, (e) Schumann, (f) Brahms, (g) somebody else.

SO, LET'S PROCEED WITH THE "LITTLE STORY" --

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."

"Jesus came from the courthouse door": "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" and other, variously irresistible Ives songs

SUNDAY NOONISH UPDATE: Internet Archive seems to have recovered from its outage, so we're back in business.
MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: For "afterthoughts" on the performances
of "General William Smith Enters into Heaven," there's now an "afterpost."

Donald Gramm (1927-1983)  [photo by Christian Steiner]

. . . (Are you washed in the blood, in the blood of the Lamb,
in the blood of the Lamb, the Lamb, of the Lamb, the Lamb?)

Jesus came from the courthouse door,
stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones,
round and round, round and round and round,
[or: "round and round the mighty courthouse square,"]
and round, and round and round, and round and round . . .

-- text from the Vachel Lindsay poem
"General William Booth Enters into Heaven"

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Richard Cumming, piano. Desto, recorded c1964

Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Donald Hassard, piano. From their Town Hall (New York City) recital of Feb. 24, 1976

Nathan Gunn, baritone; Kevin Murphy, piano. EMI-Warner Classics, recorded in St. Mary's Church, Highgate, London, Mar. 31-Apr. 2, 1998

'I can see him shuffling down, to the barn or to the town': Memories were always close to the heart of Ives's sense of artistic purpose

[POST CONSTRUCTION ZONE -- HARD HATS RECOMMENDED --
OKAY, SO MAYBE WE JUST GO AHEAD AND CALL THIS A POST]

Roberta Alexander and indomitable accompanist Tan Crone

IVES: "Memories":

B, Rather Sad (Adagio)
From the street a strain on my ear doth fall,
a tune as threadbare as that “old red shawl.”
It is tattered, it is torn,
it shows signs of being worn,
it's the tune my Uncle hummed from early morn.
'Twas a common little thing and kind-a sweet,
but 'twas sad and seemed to slow up both his feet.
I can see him shuffling down,
to the barn or to the town,
a-hum-[drawn out]-ming. [Hums]

-- text by the composer

Roberta Alexander, soprano; Tan Crone, piano. Etcetera, recorded in the Netherlands, released 1984
The other performances we heard "highlighted" in the last post:

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

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 these performances (which we've heard before) remind
us that this could be a nephew remembering his uncle:
Gerald Finley, bass-baritone; Julius Drake, piano. Hyperion, recorded in All Saints Church (Durham Road), East Finchley, London, Nov. 1-12, 2004

Jerry Hadley, tenor; Eric Dalheim, piano. Live performance from the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Nov. 14, 2000

by Ken

For personal reasons it was kind of important to me to get some kind of post up, in particular one that advances toward the other end of this detour from the last detour from the previous detour and so on, which produced the post "About this Ives thing, we can do it the easy way, or the hard way; or maybe we have to do it both ways." One thing in particular nagged at me as that post was taking shape, and nagged me even worse once it was posted: that what I was describing as "the easy way" of coming to grips with the Ives legacy was represented only by those three clips of the same under-a-half-minute bit of a song-section that is itself only part of the two-part song "Memories."

I think it made for a darned fine half-minute of music, but in my head I kept hearing and yearning for the full "B" section of "Memories" -- and so here it is. In the process we have also answered the question I posed as to which of those three performances we were going to really focus on. And I hope there are folks who've been here and naturally assumed, noting that Jan DeGaetani was one of the contenders, that she would be the "winner."


LET'S BE PERFECTLY CLEAR: IN THIS GROUPING
OF PERFORMANCES, THERE WASN'T ANY "LOSER"

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: