Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-sally.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!ut-sally!crandell 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