Ives: Symphony No. 2 / Robert Browning Overture

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Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954)Symphony No.2 / Robert Browning Overture 'I think there must be a place in the soul all made oftunes, of tunes of long ago...'The Things OurFathers Loved, Charles Edward Ives The ComposerThere has been a great deal of discussion regarding Ivesas an experimental composer. The truth is that - despite his bewilderinglydense texture and shocking dissonance - Ives was neither a musical primitivenor a cultural iconoclast. A child of his time and place, Ives shared much incommon with the New England school of composers (Paine, Chadwick, Parker, andothers), and shared also the musical challenges that absorbed his Europeancontemporaries. Indeed, Ives saw himself as a 'continuing spirit' in thetradition of Beethoven. Charles Edward Ives was born on October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut. His ancestors were numbered among the town's mostsuccessful businessmen. The Iveses also had reputations for being both a verycivic-minded family and somewhat eccentric. George Edward Ives, Charles'sfather, departed from the family's business activities and entered music.Enlisting in the Union Army during the Civil War, George was the youngestbandmaster to have served. Following the war he returned to Danbury, where heoversaw virtually all of the town's public musical activities. Young Charlie was a musical prodigy. Under the tutelageof his father, he received a thorough grounding in the rudiments of musictheory and composition. Charlie eagerly absorbed his father's democratic approachto music appreciation, complemented with a reverence for the works of Bach,Beethoven, and Brahms. Ives attended Yale, where he followed a general courseof study and audited classes taught by the composer Horatio Parker. Parker wasregarded as a superior craftsman and his works were internationally esteemed - thoughmuch later Ives would recall his experiences with Parker in negative tones,identifying him with hidebound German musical academicism. The truth of Ives'srelationship with Parker was more complex, for during Ives's freshman yearGeorge Ives died suddenly from a stroke. Decades later in a letter to an oldfriend, Ives confessed that he had hoped to find in Parker a musicalreplacement for his father, a role for which the busy composer and teacher wasunprepared.Parker, however, was essential to Ives's development as acomposer, teaching him advanced procedures through the modeling of actualmasterworks. Concurrent with those studies, Ives composed much collegiate andother vernacular music - including a political campaign song for WilliamMcKinley, William Will, and the March Intercollegiate, played atMcKinley's inaugural ball. Following his commencement in 1898, Ives moved to New York to begin a dual career as a clerk with the Mutual Life Insurance Companyand as a church organist and choirmaster. Despite his ability as a church composer,Ives was determined not to let his future family suffer the uncertain fortunesof a musician's life