MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline

 

Charles IVES (1874–1954)
Songs - Vol. 6
Tarrant Moss (1902) [0:34]; There is a Certain Garden (1897) [1:48]; There is a Lane (1902) [1:11]; They Are There! (1942) [2:49]; The Things our Fathers Loved (and the greatest of these was Liberty) (1917) [1:33]; Thoreau (1915) [2:25]; Those Evening Bells (1907) [1:37]; Through Night and Day (1897) [2:30]; To Edith (1919) [1:33]; Tolerance (1913) [0:57]; Tom Sails Away (1917) [2:43]; Ein Ton (1900) [1:25]; Two Little Flowers (1921) [1:30]; Two Slants (Christian and Pagan) (1921) [1:44]; Vote for Names! Names! Names! (1912) [0:53]; The Waiting Soul (1908) [2:38]; Walking (1900) [2:44]; Walt Whitman (1921) [1:02]; Waltz (1894) [1:32]; Watchman! (1913) [1:54]; Weil auf Mir (1902) [1:43]; West London (1921) [3:10]; When Stars are in the Quiet Skies (1898) [3:03]; Where the Eagle Cannot See (1906) [2:00]; The White Gulls (1921) [2:50]; Widmung (1899) [2:11]; Wie Melodien Zieht es Mir (1899) [p2:56]; Wiegenlied (1906) [2:28]; William Will (1896) [4:06]; The World’s Highway (1906) [2:52]; The World’s Wanderers (1898) [1:53]; Yellow Leaves (1923) [1:28]
Lielle Berman, Jennifer Casey Cabot, Sara Jakubiak, Sumi Kittelberger (sopranos); Amanda Ingram, Tamara Mumford, Mary Phillips, Rebecca Ringle, Leah Wool (mezzos); Ryan MacPherson, Matthew Plenk, Kenneth Tarver (tenors); Daniel Trevor Bircher, Patrick Carfizzi, Michael Cavalieri, Robert Gardner, Diego Matamoros (baritones); David Pittsinger (bass); Douglas Dickson, Laura Garritson, J J Penna, Eric Trudel (piano)
rec. May-June 2005, Sprague Hall, Yale University, New Haven, USA, DDD
NAXOS 8.559274 [65:48] 

 

Experience Classicsonline


Apart from the French-Canadian Claude Vivier, no other composer seems to separate the listening public into the ‘hate him’/‘love him’ camps than Charles Ives. He is seen by some as a bungling amateur who had no idea of what he was doing. He is understood by many as the first real American composer, the first true voice of the American vernacular. Ives’ music can still shock an audience and raise passionate debate amongst music-lovers. Despite living to a grand old age, and seeing his music start to gain an audience, Ives wrote little after 1918. True he tinkered with pieces, left sketches for a Piano Concerto – the
Emerson Concerto, which was reconstructed David G Porter – and considered a Universe Symphony which would be all embracing in its intent and purpose, but the majority of his work after the war was vocal; the simple song for voice and piano. 

I’m not sure how many songs Ives wrote during his career but the six disks so far issued by Naxos comprise some 191 songs. This collection is as interesting and varied as it could be, ranging from the naïve simplicity of Two Little Flowers to the forthright, but somewhat ribald, They are There! - Ives’ own contribution to the war effort. One of the confusing things about the songs is the bewildering variety of styles in which they are written. It seems to me that he simply wrote in whatever style he thought best fitted the text he had chosen. When he wrote his own words I am sure that the accompanying music sprang alongside the words. This still leaves us confused at the sometimes drawing room ballad style of some of the songs when heard against his more philosophical and complex ones. 

This collection concentrates on the more straightforward songs but contains some wonderful surprises – Walking was the first Ives song I ever heard. It still has the power to shock. Starting as a simple song, when the tempo increases the singer gives a, spoken, commentary on the events and sights before him. It’s a marvelous piece of work which never does what you think it might. They Are There! uses unison voices, and piccolo obbligato, and is a passionate war song. Tom Sails Away tells of a family parting in the First World War. We also hear some of his philosophical works – Thoreau, after a spoken introduction, is all contemplation, and his setting of Matthew Arnold, West London - a vision of a growing society. There are the lighter songs, one dedicated to his adoptive daughter, and the very strange Tarrant Moss which sets words by Kipling. However, as copyright permission was refused Ives wrote his own verse and published it under the title Slugging a Vampire! This is Ives at his most perverse. The version recorded here uses the original Kipling words. 

Whilst there’s nothing on this disk of the stature of From the Incantation (1921), On the Antipodes (1915/1923) or the astonishing General William Booth Enters Into Heaven (1914) this is an interesting collection of much less well known Ives vocal works. The use of several different singers makes for a really interesting set. They are all very good, with controlled voices, no wobble and vibrato held to a minimum. 

Over the years there have been many recordings of handfuls of these songs, from Fischer–Dieskau, Marni Nixon and Jan DeGaetani, but this is part of a complete sequence of the songs and it should be in every collection. The recording is excellent, in good sound and the balance between voice and piano is exemplary. Although Naxos do not accompany the disc with texts for the songs the liner-notes are helpful and give a good idea of what each piece is about.

Bob Briggs


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.