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From: crandell@ut-sally.UUCP (Jim Crandell)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: ives
Message-ID: <2270@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Jul-85 04:25:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2270
Posted: Sat Jul  6 04:25:57 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 01:26:08 EDT
References: <2843@decwrl.UUCP> <60@bbnccv.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 38

>     One of my favorite Ives pieces is his "Variations on America".  Ives
> originally wrote it for organ, and it was arranged for orchestra by William
> Schumann (who won a Pulitzer this year).  I happen to think that the
> transcription for concert band of Schumann's arrangement is the most successful
> of the three.  Neither the organ nor the orchestra has quite the right range
> of timbres to give the proper character to each variation.

Sorry, but I must disagree here.  Yes, I have heard the band transcription
(can't remember where) and if it's played with conviction, it comes off
awfully well.  It's not really surprising that the band sound seems more
appropriate to Ives's youthful boisterousness than the orchestra; Ives was
raised a bandman, and to some extent he remained one all his life.  But the
truly correct medium for this piece is the original.  Trouble is, there are
a lot of really whimpy recordings of it lying around.  That old tape that 
John Obetz unearths every year for the annual ``patriotic'' issue of his
weekly syndicate really ought to be introduced by Kermit Shafer (sp?).
Okay, that's an exaggeration.  But it's a very clear, precise and distinct
performance, and it sounds very Ivesian in a purely technical sort of way
(i.e., all the stereotypical Ives harmonies are there); all of the teenager's
exhuberant abandon and Ives's very American sense of humor are missing.
You want precision, listen to Gillian Weir.

Now, on an old Nonesuch release, you'll find the late Dick Elsasser playing
it much more like the way Ives himself probably played it (not that Elsasser's
performance isn't precise; but what that organ does -- at an appropriately
rousing tempo, especially -- often isn't), and it's more fun than, oh, mebbe
four-five barrel o' monkeys.  The album also includes Ives's chorale prelude
on Adeste Fideles, a jewel of magical simplicity which is far too seldom heard.
Recorded on the mellow monster of the Hammond Museum (John, not Laurens),
which is a topic in and unto itself. 

Ives wrote ``America Variations'', by the way, when he was 16 or thereabouts.
For himself.  Say what you will about Ives, he evidently was no slouch as
an organist.
-- 

    Jim Crandell, C. S. Dept., The University of Texas at Austin
               {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!crandell