Ives Orchestral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Charles Ives
Label: DG
Magazine Review Date: 10/1994
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 439 869-2GH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Orchestral Set No. 1, `Three Places in New England |
Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer Orpheus Chamber Orchestra |
| (The) Unanswered Question |
Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer Orpheus Chamber Orchestra |
| Set for Theatre Orchestra |
Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer Orpheus Chamber Orchestra |
| Symphony No. 3, 'The Camp Meeting' |
Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer Orpheus Chamber Orchestra |
| Set No. 1 |
Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer Gilbert Kalish, Piano Orpheus Chamber Orchestra |
Author: Peter Dickinson
I have enthused about this conductorless chamber orchestra, especially their outstanding all-Copland release also on DG (see my ''Gramophone Collection'', 11/90). So my expectations for their all-Ives collection were perhaps unrealistically high. There is now a great deal of competition in Ives recordings. What Ives called his ''Sets'' for various chamber groups were magnificently done by the Ensemble Modern on EMI (6/93—tragically nla), with slightly more bite in the performance and recording than here.
This is now the sixth version of the hymn-tune saturated Third Symphony and I found that Slatkin with the St Louis SO was the best available. Like Tilson Thomas, the Orpheus use an edition of the score with some distant extras (noticeable especially at the end of the first and last movements). The Orpheus are most compelling in Three Places in New England. I first got to know the work from a 1957 Mercury LP with Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra—that performance, now on CD, still wears well and so does the music. Like the best of Ives, his Three Places remains vital in its fascinating depiction of moods and events. In ''Putnam's Camp'' the Orpheus, without a conductor, neatly manage the two marching rhythms simultaneously in separate metres, the unique Ives experience. (One starts at 2'24'', the other at 2'37''.)
In reviewing the Slatkin CD I welcomed The Unanswered Question recorded along with its partner, Central Park in the Dark. The Orpheus recording of The Unanswered Question enters rightly at the threshold of audibility and sustains this rapt atmosphere. As Ives's sketches have been explored, alternative readings of many works have become available. Slatkin's trumpeter plays all his repeated question phrases to end consistently on a B flat: the Orpheus soloist follows the familiar pattern ending alternately on C and B natural, but ending on C.
But it's good to have the Orpheus well recorded in this repertoire, even if there are no novelties and little to supplant existing offerings.'
This is now the sixth version of the hymn-tune saturated Third Symphony and I found that Slatkin with the St Louis SO was the best available. Like Tilson Thomas, the Orpheus use an edition of the score with some distant extras (noticeable especially at the end of the first and last movements). The Orpheus are most compelling in Three Places in New England. I first got to know the work from a 1957 Mercury LP with Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra—that performance, now on CD, still wears well and so does the music. Like the best of Ives, his Three Places remains vital in its fascinating depiction of moods and events. In ''Putnam's Camp'' the Orpheus, without a conductor, neatly manage the two marching rhythms simultaneously in separate metres, the unique Ives experience. (One starts at 2'24'', the other at 2'37''.)
In reviewing the Slatkin CD I welcomed The Unanswered Question recorded along with its partner, Central Park in the Dark. The Orpheus recording of The Unanswered Question enters rightly at the threshold of audibility and sustains this rapt atmosphere. As Ives's sketches have been explored, alternative readings of many works have become available. Slatkin's trumpeter plays all his repeated question phrases to end consistently on a B flat: the Orpheus soloist follows the familiar pattern ending alternately on C and B natural, but ending on C.
But it's good to have the Orpheus well recorded in this repertoire, even if there are no novelties and little to supplant existing offerings.'
Ives Orchestral Works
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