Product Description
Central to the evolution of American music is the legacy of Charles Ives. This grand-scale reference work provides details surrounding the multifarious responses to the achievement of this singular businessman/musician for more than a century. Performances, recordings, journalistic reports, reviews, and scholarly studies of all kinds as well as assorted Ivesiana in the form of literature, art, film, dance, and other expressions of homage are included. Many of the entries are amplified with contextual information or carefully selected excerpts. Professor Burk has been an enthusiastic connoisseur of Ives s music and a thoughtful student of the Ives literature for many years; his systematic presentation results in much more than a glorified work list or another ambitious bibliography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A terrific resource for finding materials by and about Ives.
According to my stated method of using Amazon star rankings, a book this specialized should probably get four stars.I like it, it is valuable, but it is not for general audiences.However, I give it five stars because this work is so valuable to anyone interested in finding resources related to Charles Ives.

This is not a biography of Ives, but a resource that lists works Ives wrote, works written about Ives, his compositions, recordings that have been made of his works, and a bunch of other material.You will find items relating to his family, films about Ives or that use his music, paintings, music dedicated to him, poems, sculptures, photographs, telecasts, and a lot more.The editor refers to it as a "living biography" and I think that is apt.

James Burk not only lists the material, he provides helpful annotations that help us understand the details of the item included.He never gets in the way of the listing or makes the book anything other than a compendium about Ives.

There are also photographs and diagrams, not many, but what is included is quite helpful.

I am not saying that every music lover ought to have this book on his or her bookshelf, but I think anyone who is attracted to the music of Charles Ives would enjoy turning to this resource to help them find materials by and about the composer.I am glad I have it on my bookshelf.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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Customer Reviews (1)

Charles Ives, evaluated on his centennial anniversary.
How better to observe the month of the 50th anniversary of Charles Ives's death (May 19, 1954) than with some comments on a 30-year-old book that celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth? Well, I can't think of a better way for this special month.

The year 1974 saw a flurry of Ivesian activity, in performances and recordings of Ives's music, and in symposia and publications. This book-"An Ives Celebration"-while not published until 1977, captures a series of symposia and concerts held during the Charles Ives Centennial Festival-Conference of 17 - 21 October, 1974. It is, to my way of thinking, the best Ives centennial book, and as such is a true collector's item. (In stark contrast, unquestionably the *worst* book to come out of the Ives centennial year was David Wooldridge's "From the Steeples and Mountains," a work I previously reviewed in some depth at its Amazon.com product page.)

While this book is edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock and Vivian Perlis, two Ives scholars who are still very much with us today, I think that they would forgive me for saying that the book-and the Festival-Conference as well-might never have happened had it not been for the two decades' worth of groundbreaking scholarly work that John Kirkpatrick did, beginning at Ives's death. It was during these two fertile decades of scholarly work that much of the "unknown Ives"-who had been not much more than a curious footnote to musical history at the time of his death-became the "known Ives." And, in large measure, "by this book, ye shall know Ives."

The proceedings (papers and panel discussions) are divided into five main sections. In addition, there are three appendices, one of which lists all of the concert performances, with fully-detailed programs, that were held in conjunction with the Festival-Conference. These performances are literally a "Who's Who" of Ivesians of that time: Kirkpatrick, William Masselos, Gregg Smith, the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, James Sinclair, Jonathan Elkus, Robert Shaw, John Mauceri, Helen Boatwright and Phyllis Curtin, to mention just some of the artists. It is a shame that no recordings of those concerts appear to have survived.

The first section, "Ives and American Culture," endeavors, in three presentations, to put Ives into a proper social context and cultural milieu. It is, in my estimation, the portion that has worn the least well over the years. Robert M. Crunden endeavors to include Ives among the great progressivists of the era, including Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey, inter alia. Frank R. Rossiter-the first Ives scholar to submit Ives's life and works to psychological analysis-argues (largely) that Ives's self-imposed isolation, the narrowness of his cultural experiences, his emphasis on "masculinity" and his absolutist moral positions were largely the outgrowth of his upbringing, the early death of his father (whom he clearlyboth idolized and idealized), and the failure of America and the world to conform to his ideals (particularly in the years following the end of WW I). Neely Bruce compares Ives to his earlier American predecessors, including the "Second New England School" that included Horatio Parker, his Yale mentor, but, to my way of thinking, with too much emphasis on Stephen Foster as an "Ivesian precursor/paradigm." Much of this "1974 thinking" represents, in retrospect, examples of blind men endeavoring to explain the elephant. A far better and much more complete picture of the complexities of Ives emerges in Jan Swafford's "Charles Ives: A Life With Music."

The real meat of these proceedings, and the reason why this book is especially worth tracking down, lies in the latter three sections. "On Editing Ives" (Section III) illuminates the challenges scholars have had to deal with, in coming to grips with a lifetime's worth of stored manuscripts exceeding 700 works, and the range of creative solutions they have devised for realizing many of these works. "On Conducting and Performing Ives" (Section IV) relates the conductorial experiences of Lehman Engel, John Mauceri, Gunther Schuller, Nicolas Slonimsky, Gregg Smith and others in dealing with the technical difficulties inherent in Ives's orchestral and choral compositions. Much closer to home, on a personal note, is a splendid symposium by Nancy and Alan Mandel in performing Ives's violin sonatas, vastly underappreciated works now more dear to me than ever with the recent gift of the scores for these from a friend.

The concluding section ("Ives and Present-Day Musical Thought") contains two of the best presentations of the Festival-Conference. "Spatial Form in Ives," by Robert P. Morgan (who was to write, four years later, "Ives and Mahler: Mutual Responses at the End of an Era," a seminal essay that ties together large areas of compositional-aesthetics common ground between these otherwise dramatically different composers), sets out in splendid detail the highly-specific dynamic and spatial indications that Ives wrote into many of his works, how such demands were unique (owing largely to Ives's commitment to "write for himself rather than for performance"), and how observance of these indications results in music that continues to sound so fresh a century later. And Allen Forte, a leading expert on atonality theory and its description in terms of "sets" (of notes), in "Ives and Atonality," provides a rather exhaustive analysis of the atonality found in Ives's works, comparing aspects of atonality in Ives's compositions in depth to those of Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Berg that were written years later.

As noted earlier, Ives has been the elephant to more than a few blind men. It seems to me-perhaps as a consequence of totally immersing myself in the widest possible range of his music-that he is best appreciated and understood by embracing him in his Whitmanesque totality. This collector's item of a book goes a long way toward a fuller, richer understanding of his uniqueness. Highly-even urgently-recommended to every Ivesian.

Bob Zeidler ... Read more

Product Description
This authoritative volume of 453 letters written by and to composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) provides unparalleled insight into one of the most extraordinary and paradoxical careers in American music history. The most comprehensive collection of Ives's correspondence in print, this book opens a direct window on Ives's complex personality and his creative process. Though Ives spent much of his career out of the mainstream of professional music-making, he corresponded with a surprisingly large group of musicians and critics, including John J. Becker, Henry Bellamann, Leonard Bernstein, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Ingolf Dahl, Walter Damrosch, Lehman Engel, Clifton J. Furness, Lou Harrison, Bernard Herrmann, John Kirkpatrick, Serge Koussevitzky, John Lomax, Francesco Malipiero, Radiana Pazmor, Paul Rosenfeld, Carl Ruggles, E. Robert Schmitz, Nicolas Slonimsky, and Peter Yates. ... Read more

Product Description
Explores the rich traditions of 20th-century American music. Traces the history of popular folk songs, Negro spirituals, psalms & hymns which together created an independent music with a distinct character. Discusses the inventiveness of Charles Ives; popular styles such as Gospel, blues, ragtime, jazz & Tin Pan Alley; & composers who drew on these influences. Charts the success of giants such as Copland & Cage, & redefines the importance of lesser-known figures such as Cowell, Partch & Earle Brown. Discusses the Modernists, such as Babbitt, Carter & Crumb; & Minimalists such as Young, Riley, Reich, Glass & Adams. Looks at South American composers such as Villa-Lobos, Chavez & Kagel. Indispensable! ... Read more

Product Description
Baseball and the Music of Charles Ivesoffers readers an exceptionally rich understanding of Charles Ives. Through intelligent discussion of Ives's musical compositions combined with solid research on the composer's lifelong love of the American pastime, Ives's pioneering spirit and unique creativity are highlighted most clearly in this fascinating work. ... Read more

Product Description
A psychoanalytic biography which examines the lives of Charles Ives and his father, George. It shows how a knowledge of their relationship as father and son, teacher and pupil is central to understanding Ives' work. Charles' music is shown as an unconscious collaboration between father and son. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

fascinating, worth reading
As the other reviewer points out, this book is sometimes skewed, but overall it's an incredible achievement, and I highly recommend it. Ives' relationship with his father, and the extent to which his father's radical ideas influenced him had been little studied until this book was written, so it was really groundbreaking research. I suggest reading several other books on Ives if you are reading this - it will put it all into context. But this is a must-have for anyone interested in Ives.
Musicians will also find this an enlightening work, as it delves into the subtext of so many of the songs (in particular). Well worth it for every performer!

Attempting to explain- away Ives
This biography of Ives neglects the most important thing that makes Charles Edward Ives someone worth reading about; brushing his music aside, Feder contiues on to show us exactly why we should be indifferent at bestto this all but crazy composer.

While his anyalisis of the music isinteresting, it is shallow at best, picking and choosing songs and otherworks to support his claims about Ives. He delves deeply into a man, andlooses the reason Ives is someone we care about-- the music he wrote.

Ives certianly had an unusual, and perhaps unhealthy, relationship withhis father, but Feder exagerates this and turns it into something unlikewhat Ives himself said it was.Feder uses this to explain Ives'eccentricites and moodiness in his later life, ignoring the fact that Ivessuffered from adult onset diabetes, which was a likely cause of that, aswell as a possible cause of George Ives' premature death.

At its best,this book is a penetrating look at Charles Ives the man.At its worst, itdisenegrates into Freudan goobledey-gook of which it is difficult to makeheads or tails. ... Read more

Product Description
All the essential bibliographic information on this Connecticut composer's scores, life and writings compiled in one volume that all American music scholars will want to own. ... Read more

Product Description
The musical and historical significance of one of America's most famous twentieth-century composers is represented in a substantively annotated, discerning and critical bibliography that includes a foreword by the noted Ives scholar, J. Peter Burkholder. The book begins with an explanation of the scope, organization, and rationale of the material presented and provides an overview and discussion of the current status of Ives scholarship. This is followed by a biographical sketch, a catalog of works and performances, and a complete discography of all recordings in print as of 1985. The bibliography consists of four major sections devoted to collections and catalogs, biographical and aesthetic articles, reviews and critical evaluations of Ives and his contemporaries; and a final section on Ives' work. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume studies and compares the different compositional and aesthetic approaches of six important American composers of the 20th century (Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Morton Feldman und La Monte Young) within the context of intellectual history. German text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Classical Essays
I think the thing I liked most about this book was the fact that these were composers writing. It felt like I was getting inside their head, perhaps understanding them a little better, and meanwhile understanding music as well.

For this reason, Debussy's essays were without a doubt my favorite. In fact, it is only thanks to his portion of this book that this receives a five-star rating and not a four (but mostly to raise the overall rating, because this is not a three-star book, but a FOUR). Debussy's writing is clear and interesting, providing the reader with so much information about the most random things and some things that are simply fascinating. The various essays on different composers were incredibly enjoyable as well as amusing. It made me smile to see one of my favorite composers writing about my other favorite composers, all in one book! Debussy wrote about things that were relevant at the time, and that in itself is interesting. A charming collection that I loved reading and rereading.

Busoni's "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music", I'm afraid, is less enjoyable. A bit dryer and bit more complex, Busoni's essay seems more geared towards people who are already well-versed in music, composing, and the tricky little things that the casual listener doesn't really care about. The casual reader will find this to be dull, and even the hard-core reader who is also a music fan may find this to be just a tad bit slow and boring in comparison to Debussy's charming essay.

Ives' essay, meanwhile, is kind of... different. It feels a bit more all over the place, which while making it less boring, still doesn't make it quite as interesting as the first batch. It's interesting, but not incredible. I found that it's not exactly something you go back to reread very often.

Overall, if Debussy's "Monsieur Croche the Dilettante Hater" was offered as a single volume, I'd heartily recommend you buy that. However, as it is NOT offered anywhere as a new volume, cheap, or even anything remotely comfortable and appropriate, I'd say buy this. Classical music fans who can read long essays without nodding off should definitely read this interesting book, despite the occasional boring moments.

Recommended, if only for Debussy.

Essential reading for mature musicians
Debussy is delightful.Writing as "Monsieur Croche" for various newspapers, he produced 25 articles of irreverent, sparkling wit.Busoni attempts to answer the question "What are the aims of music?"But the real gem is the "Essays before a Sonata" by Charles Ives which serves as a literary complement to the movements of his still difficult and esoteric Piano Sonata 'Concord, 1845".These essays are not for the casual reader or the young music student.

confusedly yawning
I don't usually like to give bad reviews of anything, but this book leaves me no choice.I had to read it to write a paper on it and just getting through the first chapter alone is a chore in itself.Debussy is so repetetive, the writing has ABSOLUTELY no form and it just hammers a point to death.I couldn't concentrate on this for more than a few seconds at a time. ... Read more