CMS Webcast: Gilbert Kalish Performs the Concord Sonata

Over the past few months I've blogged about the many great piano recitals I've been lucky enough to have attended this season, but I really thought the best was that given by Gilbert Kalish at Lincoln Center's Rose Studio on Thursday evening under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society.  (Ironically, I was not able to be there in person but did watch the webcast shown on the CMS website.)  The first part of the program was excellent enough.  It opened with a performance of works by three living composers - George Crumb, Perry Goldstein and Sheila Silver - all of whom had written their pieces specifically for the pianist.  That portion of the recital then ended with an evocative rendition of the poetic In the Mists (1912) by Leoš Janáček.  But it was the second half of the program, in which Mr. Kalish performed only one work, the monumental Concord Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60) by Charles Ives, that was truly most memorable.

I had only heard the Concord Sonata performed once before (at a Mannes student recital in 2013) but that had been more than enough to convince me that this was one of the greatest piano works of the twentieth century.  It is so utterly daring in its early use of atonality and polytonality that it cannot help but shock the listener.  What's fascinating is that Ives had no models to follow when composing it.  Indeed, when the composer first began work on it, circa 1911 (although Ives had begun developing the ideas contained within it much earlier; he had already completed a sketch for an "Alcotts overture" in 1904), there was very little "modern" music available that was so radical in concept.  It wasn't until ten years later, in 1921, that Schoenberg first formulated the twelve-tone technique.  But  in the event, it wouldn't have made a great difference had such innovative experiments taken place and had the composer been aware of them.  Ives was a true American original and fiercely independent.  He wanted nothing to do with musical schools or traditions.  It might just as well have been Ives and his music that Thoreau (portrayed in the sonata's final movement) had had in mind when he wrote:

"A man's life should be a stately march to a sweet but unheard music, and when to his fellows it shall seem irregular and inharmonious, he will only be stepping to a livelier measure, or his nicer ear hurry him into a thousand symphonies and concordant variations."

It is Ives's interest in Transcendentalism that forms the spiritual core of the work.  Three of the four personages portrayed - Emerson, Alcott and Thoreau - were ardent Transcendentalists, most especially in their belief in the innate goodness of man.  (The inclusion of Hawthorne was something of an anomaly as the writer considered man to be a basically sinful creature and, late in life, wrote essays highly critical the movement).  The great appeal of Transcendentalism for Ives was no doubt the emphasis it placed on individualism, as expressed most famously in Emerson's essay "Self Reliance."

There is a wonderful study of the Concord Sonata contained on pp. 256-266 of Jan Swafford's Charles Ives: A Life in Music that explores in detail the composition of the work as well as the endless revisions that followed.  (It is also the source of the above quotation from Thoreau.)  The analysis provides as thorough an understanding as anyone is likely to offer, especially regarding so eccentric a composer, as to what was occupying Ives's thoughts as he transformed his Transcendentalist inspiration into musical motifs.  Along the way, it adds an informative aside:

"At the end of that vacation at Pell Jones's they [Ives and his wife] had watched the last mist over the lake, and afterward Harmony had written a poem called "Mists," about loss and renewal."

So apt was this remark to the performance of Janáček's In the Mist at the end of the first half of Thursday's recital that I could not help but wonder if the pianist had had it in mind when assembling the program.

Over the past two seasons, I have seen Gilbert Kalish perform at Mannes with Timothy Eddy in programs of cello sonatas and have been deeply impressed by the high level of musicianship shown by both.  It was a pleasure to see the pianist's solo recital in which he proved himself to be a complete master of his instrument.  Nevertheless, in spite of the incredible level of virtuosity he displayed in his approach to all the works on the program, his presence onstage was quiet and unassuming.  He appeared genuinely excited to be there and very eager to share with the audience his extensive knowledge of the music.