Ives

On her first Pentatone album, pianist Tamara Stefanovich presents a highly personal selection of solo works by Bach, Bartók, Ives and Messiaen. Influences shows how these extraordinarily original and idiosyncratic composers let themselves be inspired by the exterior world, thereby demonstrating how authenticity comes from looking outside as well as inside. The repertoire spans from Bach's embrace of Italian musical elements in his Aria variata alla maniera italiana, Bartók's incorporation of folk elements in his Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, and Messiaen's use of Hindu rhythms in Cantéyodjayâ to the collage of marching bands, sounds of trains and machinery, church hymns, ragtime and blues in Ives' first piano sonata.

After appearing on a quartet of very different BIS releases, ranging from early baroque arias to orchestral songs by Alban Berg and Mahler’s ‘Resurrection Symphony’, the British soprano Ruby Hughes has devised a song recital, together with her regular Lieder partner Joseph Middleton. The process began in 2018 when the two gave the world première of Helen Grime’s Bright Travellers, a set of five poems charting the interior and exterior worlds of pregnancy and motherhood. Ruby Hughes soon set about planning a programme which would converge with Grime’s music and the themes of new life and of love in all its aspects.

Burl Ives - All My Best (1995) {MCA MSD-35732}
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© 1995 MCA Records / The Beautiful Music Company | MSD-35732
Folk / Country / Ballad / Folk Pop

Gen X-ers will instantly recognize Burl Ives's voice from his appearance as a rotund snowman in the animated TV classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. But more mature listeners should remember that Ives was a key figure in the folk explosion of the '50s. His pop handling of traditional tunes brought him great success, and this CD collects some of his best. A few tracks, like a swinging "Blue Tail Fly," complete with Andrews Sisters-style background singing, may seem anathema to the folk aesthetic, but that's splitting hairs. If nothing else, this is exceedingly friendly music, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Charles Ives – Complete Symphonies offers fresh insights into the music of a radical thinker, creator of what Leonard Bernstein called “his own private musical revolution.” The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performances of these works at Walt Disney Concert Hall, conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, received rave reviews. With their restless energy, myriad colors and textures, irresistible references to popular American melodies and impulsive changes of mood, these symphonies reveal the heart of “a man full of ideas [who] was trying to create something unique,” according to Dudamel. “When you see calm and contemplation, maybe in a moment it’s complete chaos. At the end, what Ives was doing was opening the door to the texture and the personality of music created in the United States. His symphonies are a great gift to the world.”

Charles Ives – Complete Symphonies offers fresh insights into the music of a radical thinker, creator of what Leonard Bernstein called “his own private musical revolution.” The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performances of these works at Walt Disney Concert Hall, conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, received rave reviews. With their restless energy, myriad colors and textures, irresistible references to popular American melodies and impulsive changes of mood, these symphonies reveal the heart of “a man full of ideas [who] was trying to create something unique,” according to Dudamel. “When you see calm and contemplation, maybe in a moment it’s complete chaos. At the end, what Ives was doing was opening the door to the texture and the personality of music created in the United States. His symphonies are a great gift to the world.”

Sideshow - Songs Of Charles Ives (2001) {CRI BlueShift CD2000}
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© 2001 CRI / BlueShift | CD 2000
Jazz / Classical / Third Stream / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Classical

CRI (Composers Recordings Inc., a non-profit, composer-directed American new music label) introduced their "blueshift" imprint in 2001 with this unique merging of jazz and the music of Charles Ives. The recording itself, however, was made in November, 1988 at Tedesco Studios in New Jersey and engineered by Jon Rosenberg, produced by Matt Moran and Adam Good (the vibraphone player and the guitarist, respectively, on the recording). The other musicians are John Hollenbeck (drums and other percussion) and Oscar Noriega (alto saxophone and bass clarinet).

Church musicians, especially of the Anglican/Episcopal persuasion, should be happy that there's at least one person out there writing first-rate, functional, and very accessible (in the best sense) anthems and service music–music that dedicated, competent choirs and organists can perform to a high standard. Some listeners may recognize Grayston Ives (nom de plume of Bill Ives) for his years (in the 1980s) with the King's Singers where he both sang and contributed as an arranger.