Getting ready for Yale trip

Before I went to Yale in January of 2020, I had been narrowing down pieces for a chamber recital which would show how Ives utilized the flute in a variety of ways.  I came up with a tentative program of the following pieces & their timings based off YouTube recordings:

Tone Roads No. 1 (3:20)

Mists

The Rainbow

Afterglow 

Evening (8:00 total)

Old Home Day (Baritone) (4:00)

He Is There! (Mezzo Soprano) (3:49)

March No. 2 

March No. 3 (6:00 total)

Allegretto Sombreoso 

At Sea 

Ann Street 

The Pond/Remembrance (7:00 total)

All the Way Around & Back w/fl, instead of cl (1:00)

Scherzo Over the Pavements:  Will need extra rehearsal (5:00)

Fugue in 4 Keys (3:46)

Unanswered Question (w/flute quartet) (6:00)

Holiday Quickstep March (2:00)

     The challenge with this kind of program is coordinating players’ schedules to make rehearsals convenient and as efficient as possible.  A chamber ensemble dedicated to this music for an entire semester would be ideal, so that students would have the time built into their schedules. As an official class, we would have the time to learn how to approach/master these pieces, gain cohesiveness as a group, and be working toward the goal of a chamber recital as an end result.  In using the least number of performers possible per piece, while still remaining true to what Ives intended, and having the same performers be involved in as many works as they could, we would gain a broad Ives experience.  Other works that may be considered include Premonitions and Ragtime Dance No. 4. However, the ensembles required for these are much larger and maybe unrealistic.  Another question is if we need a conductor, or if, as a chamber group, we could collaborate on a piece and make decisions together, especially with cuing.  Lastly, as I thought about the audience reception of an all Ives chamber recital, I wanted to make sure the program was balanced in regards to style, tempo, and overall mood.   I think it’s extremely important to present Ives’s music carefully, taking into account the possibility of incorrect assumptions, since his music was often misunderstood or not appreciated for various reasons.  

    Another influence in how I approached my research at Yale was having just read Vivan Perlis’s Charles Ives Remembered An Oral History.  I could not get out of my mind how Bernard Hermann in his interview said Ives’s favorite ensemble to compose for was the theatre orchestra.  I immediately thought of several questions:  What were Ives’s experiences with theatre orchestras?  Were these experiences positive or negative? Who were the musicians?  Did he have certain players in mind when composing?  Were they amateurs or professionals?  What were the size and make up of these ensembles?  

    Furthermore, as I read the Perlis interviews, I realized Ives had several collaborators who helped him prepare the scores for performances.  Besides Bernard Hermann, there were Henry Cowell, Nicolas Slominsky, and Lou Harrison.  For clues of what was important to Ives in the music, I would need to look at correspondence between Ives and his collaborators.  I would also like to obtain as many copies of scores and parts as possible, to analyze them before organizing my team of chamber musicians. 

    Lastly, as I mentioned in a previous post, several of the chamber works shared titles with songs that Ives composed.  In looking at the songs, I wanted to know what came first, the chamber work, or the song?  Did the lyrics of the song influence the chamber work or vice versa?  Who wrote the lyrics?  Were there any dedications?  

    With my chamber program in hand, theatre orchestra, collaborators, and songs in mind, I began my second journey to Yale.