Charles Ives and the Classical Tradition

Although Charles Ives has long been viewed as the quintessential American composer, he placed himself in the European classical tradition, drew on it heavily for his aesthetic philosophy and musical techniques, and extended it to create something new. This book illuminates Ives's music by comparing it with that of other composers in Europe and the United States.

Edited by two highly regarded Ives scholars, the book begins with essays that examine the influences on Ives of his musical predecessors and concludes with essays that find extensive parallels between Ives and such European contemporaries as Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, and Stravinsky, whose music he knew little or not at all, but with whom he shared influences and concerns. Taken together, these chapters demonstrate that even apparently strange or distinctively American aspects of Ives's music--from his penchant for quotation to his juxtaposition of disparate styles--have strong precedents and parallels among European composers. Ives emerges as a composer at home in the classical tradition, engaged in exploring the same issues that confronted composers of his generation on both sides of the Atlantic.

Charles Ives is often portrayed in textbooks as the first American composer to reject the established traditions of European music and forge an entirely original path. The purpose of this collection of essays is to debunk the notion by presenting Ives as a composer whose works extend, not repudiate, the contemporary styles and techniques of turn-of-the-century Western music. The essays are divided into two sections. In the first, editors Block (music, Univ. of Puget Sound) and Burkholder (music, Univ. of Indiana) each present an overview convincingly portraying Ives as an experimental composer who nonetheless was rooted deeply in the European Romantic tradition. In the second part, Ives is compared in successive chapters to four of his major European peers: Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, and Stravinsky. All the essays are pitched to the musically literate, but only the Berg essay uses advanced music theory terminology that will be incomprehensible to the lay reader. Overall, this is a valuable addition to Ives scholarship and belongs in any major music collection.?Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.