Charles Ives, working as an insurance executive by day and a composer by night for all the years of his artistic career, produced relatively few large-scale works in long forms: two piano sonatas, four violin sonatas, four symphonies, a cantata, and an overture. Most of his music is in short forms, such as songs and brief piano or orchestral chamber music works, and even some major works are really collections of individual movements written at different times. One of Europe's leading dedicated new music groups,
Ensemble Modern, here presents a fine selection of 26 of these short pieces, including five of the songs, the instrumental versions of several other songs, and two of the composer's "Sets."
The whole production is a model of its type. The playing is outstanding. Where the primary interest of a piece is the sonic experimentation (for instance, in All the Way Around and Back, and the two extant Tone Roads), the
Ensemble plays with precision and clarity. Where there is an emotional content to the music (Like a Sick Eagle, The Ruined River, or The Pond (Remembrance)) it is there. Baritone
Henry Herford (already having completed a fine set of all
Ives' songs on another label) contributes five songs, this time in their chamber versions. These include the great song General William Booth Enters Into Heaven.
The notes are exceptionally complete and helpful; they include statements as to which version of a piece is used and, where appropriate, who edited it. Insurance man
Ives would probably have gotten a kick out of the fact that the program was recorded in the hall of a Frankfurt, Germany, bank. The recording dates from 1991 and was splendidly taped by producer
Gerd Berg and engineers Michael Stille and
Hartwig Paulsen.