ALL THE WRONG NOTES: Charles Ives at 150, second concert

In four concerts, ALL THE WRONG NOTES: Charles Ives at 150 celebrates the 150th anniversary of composer, keyboardist, actuary, and businessman Charles Ives. Largely rejected in his youth, this native son of green New England famously gained renown only later in life and is today remembered as an iconoclast of American music. Ives’ musical agenda might best be summed up by the Connecticut minister who programmed Ives over the protests of his congregation: “God gets awfully tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.” Ives was a relentless visionary yet also a traditionalist, worshiping Beethoven and turning up his nose at Ravel and Schoenberg, whose music he claimed he never heard. Described variously as “gibberish,” “impossible,” like “awfully indigestible food,” Ives’ works draw directly from European techniques and suffuses them with the spirit and sounds of early 20th-century America, quoting popular tunes, band music, revival hymns, barn dances, and ragtime, invoking memories of holidays and parades alongside references to Transcendentalist philosophy.



This second concert on Oct. 25 features all four rarely-heard Violin Sonatas, performed by guest violinist KJ McDonald and DMA pianist Ariel Mo. Ives once recalled the dramatic (or dramatized) moment when he presented the First Violin Sonata to an unnamed violinist, who, after a couple of measures, became enraged at the plethora of notes and rhythms. He told Ives: "This cannot be played. It is not music, it makes no sense.” Ives liked to use this anecdote to explain why, in the later sonatas, he seemed to allow frequent moments of soft, sublime lyricism, calling them “an attempt to please the soft-ears and be good.” Rhapsodic and inventive, rich with references to the popular tunes and cultural settings of New England, these sonatas showcase the whirling imagination and fearless complexity of Ives’ writing, but is also replete with moments of deep-seated nostalgia and optimistic humanism that even “soft ears” can appreciate.

Cornell Department of Music | Website | View More Events

Contact the organizers