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Kim and Denk play Charles Ives
Tom Purdom
Charles Ives:
An American original who can't be pigeonholed
TOM PURDOM
Charles Ives based his four sonatas for violin and piano on a part of my personal heritage: the tunes sung at Protestant camp meetings and other outdoor gatherings. I attended a Southern Baptist church when I was a teenager. I know how the hymns in these sonatas sound when real congregations stand and deliver.
The sonatas incorporate songs like I Need Thee Every Hour and Shall We Gather at the River, but you’ll be very disappointed if you approach them expecting to hear popular melodies weaving in and out of the musical structure, as in Vaughan Williams’s Rhapsody on Greensleeves or Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Ives develops the melodies the way Bach developed the Baroque dances he immortalized in his suites. Like Bach, Ives transforms his basic material into music that is both abstract and complex.
When you do hear the undistorted melody of a hymn, Ives usually uses it for a grand finale. In the last movement of the first sonata, for example, Ives plays musical games with the tune of Work For the Night is Coming. Then, at the very end, the tune itself bursts out of the complexity with a splendor that contains all the color and impact of a piece for full chorus and orchestra.
Ives can also find unexpected emotional depths in surprising places. Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know, is usually associated with childish voices singing a foursquare melody. Ives assigns the melody to the violin, stretches it slightly, and brings out the sweetness and tenderness inherent in the “Yes, Jesus loves me” phrase.
This is folksy material, but there’s nothing folksy about Ives’s approach. When a movement is supposed to portray some aspect of a camp meeting, Ives delivers the energy and emotion of the real thing, without any sentimental Broadway-musical blurring. Ives views the hymns and the scenes he is portraying in the same way I view them. He values the music and its associations without adding false tints.
Soovin Kim and Jeremy Denk chose this program themselves. It was presented in an out-of-the-way venue, Fleisher Art Memorial, and I got the feeling the staff of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society was surprised by the size of the turnout. I think it’s safe to say that Kim and Denk have never sung these hymns in church or attended a Protestant revival. Yet they played the sonatas with the understanding of people who carried 19th Century New England in their genes. Perhaps we American have more of a common culture than we sometimes think.
Charles Ives occupies a peculiar niche in our musical culture. You can get through two or three whole seasons here in Philadelphia without seeing his name on a single program— even though we all know who he is, we’ve all heard some of his music, and his work can still attract an audience. Is Ives a peripheral figure because he never belonged to a movement or produced work that fits into critical pigeonholes like neo-romantic or neo-classical? Or do we still have trouble believing an insurance executive can be a real artist?
To read a response, click here.
An American original who can't be pigeonholed
TOM PURDOM
Charles Ives based his four sonatas for violin and piano on a part of my personal heritage: the tunes sung at Protestant camp meetings and other outdoor gatherings. I attended a Southern Baptist church when I was a teenager. I know how the hymns in these sonatas sound when real congregations stand and deliver.
The sonatas incorporate songs like I Need Thee Every Hour and Shall We Gather at the River, but you’ll be very disappointed if you approach them expecting to hear popular melodies weaving in and out of the musical structure, as in Vaughan Williams’s Rhapsody on Greensleeves or Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Ives develops the melodies the way Bach developed the Baroque dances he immortalized in his suites. Like Bach, Ives transforms his basic material into music that is both abstract and complex.
When you do hear the undistorted melody of a hymn, Ives usually uses it for a grand finale. In the last movement of the first sonata, for example, Ives plays musical games with the tune of Work For the Night is Coming. Then, at the very end, the tune itself bursts out of the complexity with a splendor that contains all the color and impact of a piece for full chorus and orchestra.
Ives can also find unexpected emotional depths in surprising places. Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know, is usually associated with childish voices singing a foursquare melody. Ives assigns the melody to the violin, stretches it slightly, and brings out the sweetness and tenderness inherent in the “Yes, Jesus loves me” phrase.
This is folksy material, but there’s nothing folksy about Ives’s approach. When a movement is supposed to portray some aspect of a camp meeting, Ives delivers the energy and emotion of the real thing, without any sentimental Broadway-musical blurring. Ives views the hymns and the scenes he is portraying in the same way I view them. He values the music and its associations without adding false tints.
Soovin Kim and Jeremy Denk chose this program themselves. It was presented in an out-of-the-way venue, Fleisher Art Memorial, and I got the feeling the staff of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society was surprised by the size of the turnout. I think it’s safe to say that Kim and Denk have never sung these hymns in church or attended a Protestant revival. Yet they played the sonatas with the understanding of people who carried 19th Century New England in their genes. Perhaps we American have more of a common culture than we sometimes think.
Charles Ives occupies a peculiar niche in our musical culture. You can get through two or three whole seasons here in Philadelphia without seeing his name on a single program— even though we all know who he is, we’ve all heard some of his music, and his work can still attract an audience. Is Ives a peripheral figure because he never belonged to a movement or produced work that fits into critical pigeonholes like neo-romantic or neo-classical? Or do we still have trouble believing an insurance executive can be a real artist?
To read a response, click here.
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