Mannes: Ives' Concord Sonata

Charles Ives was an unusual man and lived a life quite different from that of most composers.  He was born in Connecticut, the son of a Civil War army bandleader, and was educated at Yale.  Long before Schoenberg's twelve tone school had emerged in Europe, Ives was already experimenting with compositions that employed polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters and quarter tones.  In 1906 he composed Central Park in the Dark, sometimes referred to as "the first radical musical work of the twentieth century."  As his music was not well received during his lifetime and rarely performed, Ives supported himself by working in the insurance industry.  In this, he was remarkably successful as an executive and an actuary.  His innovations in devising insurance strategies for the wealthy became the basis for today's methods of estate planning.  It was only late in life that Ives began to receive recognition as a composer.

Ives published the Concord Sonata in 1915 and revised it in 1947 after he had largely given up composing.  It is an extremely long and difficult piece for solo piano that makes use of any number of experimental techniques, including the use of a wooden 2x4 in the second movement that was pressed against the keyboard in order to create a tone cluster.  The work consists of four sections, each named after a major figure of the American transcendental tradition.  The movements are titled: Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts and Thoreau. In Essays Before a Sonata, Ives wrote that is intention was an "impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts of over a half century ago."

In its continuing series of recitals, the Mannes Piano Department presented Ives' sonata yesterday evening as the only piece on the program.  Each movement was performed by a different student.  In order of appearance, these were Azamat Sydykov, Yekwon Sunwoo, Iryna Arbatska and Teng Fu.  All were so adept that they made playing this daunting work seem effortless.  In addition, the Department Chair, Pavlina Dokovska, provided a thoughtful and literate introduction to the work in which she discussed both the composer and his oeuvre. Before the beginning of each movement, she read an appropriate selection from Essays Before a Sonata that provided a context with which to better understand and appreciate the piece.