During my first three days in the reading room at the Irving S. Gilmore Library I poured over letters written between Ives and the following collaborators: Elliot Carter, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, and Bernard Hermann. I chose these musicians to start with because I knew they had been involved in getting some of Ives’s chamber works prepared for performance. To make my search proficient, I scanned the letters for mention of the pieces for my proposed recital, and for the words “flute”, “chamber”, or “theatre orchestra”. I had also read about Ives’s use of a “shadow counterpoint” in the Perlis interviews, so I was looking for those words as well.
Because a great deal of Ives’s music was composed decades before it was played, pencil sketches of pieces with corrections and patches were kept piled haphazardly in drawers in his barn at West Redding. Often Ives would pull something out, look at it, then place it back on top of a stack, resulting in a state of complete disorganization. In New York, there were photostats of ink copies Ives made available to anyone who wrote for them. Depending on the piece, there could be either pencil sketches or ink copies, sometimes both. As these collaborators wanted to perform Ives’s music, they played an essential role in piecing together the music held in West Redding and New York. The process by which parts were prepared for performance, from arranging for a specific ensemble to actual rehearsals where the music was tried out, to the final product, is invaluable to knowing how Ives wanted his music to sound.
Besides looking for words that were relevant to my research, or for the pieces I wanted to perform, I was also searching for clues to what elements of music were important to Ives as he was getting his music out into the world. I was especially interested in instrumentation, overall size of the ensemble, solos, dynamics, range, style, balance, conducting, and rehearsal techniques. In a nutshell, from a performer’s perspective, I wanted to know what Ives’s compositional intentions were and how to best achieve them. Lastly, I was curious about the performers’ attitudes and what they thought about the music. How could I motivate my future group of chamber musicians to commit to the highest level of performance? What could I share about the pieces that would lend insight into what Ives was thinking? How could I make the music the most accessible, and not intimidating? What rehearsal techniques worked and what didn’t?
One more detail to mention. The letters themselves are mostly hand-written. Sometimes there are drafts written by Ives in pencil on yellow legal paper. Because they are Ives’s notes to himself, he knew what he was conveying on paper, no matter how illegible the words are. There are also numerous cross-outs, where he changes his mind in the way he wanted to say something. Harmony then took these pencil drafts and wrote them out in her own hand, as if the letters had been dictated to her. Ives’s drafts are helpful to look at not only because they show his train of thought, but also can be used for a reference (if there is a draft available) to figure out words in Harmony’s handwriting, which also poses difficulty in deciphering. Context within the letter is extremely important in figuring out what was being said. I wanted to make the most out of my week at Yale, so I knew I couldn’t possibly read every letter fully. I was allowed to take pictures of anything. This posed yet another challenge as the lighting has to be a certain way in order to take the picture with the entire page of the letter so you could read it clearly later on. To say the least, the process was mentally exhausting. I did not bother to catalogue the letters as I took pictures of them because the letters are organized by each collaborator by date, from earliest to latest. I did, however, take a picture of the MSS Box & folder number for my references.
Also helpful are John Kirkpatrick’s neatly written notes in pencil on the margin of almost every letter where he catalogued the day, date, and year. If the time of the letter was written is in question, Kirkpatrick puts a question mark, sometimes with an explanation of why he thinks it belongs during that year. He also indicates when a letter is a direct response to a previous one, which is also very helpful. Thank you John Kirkpatrick!!!
All in all, I took 492 pictures: letters, scores, programs, record covers & jacket notes during my week in the Yale music library. I was also able to find almost all the parts & scores for my future chamber recital that I didn’t already have from GMU’s library or other libraries I had procured the music from through Interlibrary Loan. This was my first extensive hunt for answers towards a deeper understanding of Ives’s chamber music and what role the flute plays in it.