Ives Songs; Concord Sonata

A splendid addition to the Ives discography and a fine tribute 50 years after his death from two superlative musicians

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Charles Ives

Genre:

Vocal

Label: Warner Classics

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 79

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: 2564 60297-2

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Sonata for Piano No. 2, 'Concord, Mass.: 1840-60' Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
(The) Things our fathers loved Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
(The) Housatonic at Stockbridge Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Swimmers Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Memories Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Ann Street Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Serenity Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
1,2,3 Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Songs my mother taught me Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
(The) Circus Band Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
(The) Cage Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
(The) Indians Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Like a sick eagle Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
September Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
(A) Farewell to land Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Thoreau Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Soliloquy Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
(A) Sound of distant horn Charles Ives, Composer
Charles Ives, Composer
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano
Susan Graham, Soprano
Charles Ives to complaining pianist: ‘Is it the composer’s fault that man has only 10 fingers?’ Listening to Pierre-Laurent Aimard play the Concord Sonata it’s not Ives’s dry wit but the assertion that man has only 10 fingers that you begin to question. Nothing Ives wrote was ‘reasonable’ as in playable, singable. Everything was a stretch, a note or chord or counterpoint too far. Technically optimistic, spiritually aspirational. In a sense Aimard is almost too good, the realisation of everything Ives was striving for in this piece. You can almost hear Ives thinking: ‘OK, if that’s possible, let’s go somewhere else…’

Actually, the Concord Sonata goes wherever you want it to go. Its starting point is American literature – Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts and Thoreau – but its substance is in ideas. Ives the transcendentalist: beyond the American dream. An amazing stream of consciousness. Concord is a town in Massachusetts, it’s where American Independence was bloodily born; but it’s also a word for harmony and for Ives there is harmony in extreme diversity. The big moments in the sonata are all born out of flux. Ideas and notes boil over in the second movement, ‘Hawthorne’, but at its heart is the basic conflict between the earthly body and its free spirit. The body resists, the spirit meditates. There are moments here where you’d swear two pianists were involved. You’d also swear that the sorrowful song so fleetingly alluded to by solo viola (Tabea Zimmerman) in the first movement or the remnant of solo flute (Emmanuel Pahud) in the last are figments of your imagination.

Ives’s imagination – his rampant theatricality – should have made for great operas. Instead he wrote songs: capsule dramas laid out not in scenes or acts but moments in time. Susan Graham inhabits 17 such moments – nostalgic (‘Songs my mother taught me’), visionary (‘A sound of distant horn’), cryptic (‘Soliloquy’), brutal (‘1, 2, 3’), expectant (‘Thoreau’) – and the feminine and masculine qualities of her voice, to say nothing of her musical sensibility, easily encompass the ‘expectancy and ecstasy’ promised by the song ‘Memories’ – which appropriately enough recalls her (and others like her) as a little girl ‘sitting in the opera house’. Aimard is again a one-man band. Almost literally so in ‘The Circus Band’. When Graham shouts ‘hear the trombones’, you really do.

Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music. 

Stream on Presto Music | Buy from Presto Music

Gramophone Print

  • Print Edition

From £6.67 / month

Subscribe

Gramophone Digital Club

  • Digital Edition
  • Digital Archive
  • Reviews Database
  • Full website access

From £8.75 / month

Subscribe

                              

If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.