Music for the Fourth.

Music for America by an American.

On this Independence Day it is a good thing to celebrate with music as well as fireworks. Since compositions by American greats  like Sousa and Gershwin are well represented (perhaps overly so) on this day, your Tatler will instead post a couple of links to compositions by another American great, Charles Ives.

Ives’s compositions were all but ignored most his career. His “daytime job” was  insurance, in which he was a pioneer. Among other innovations he was the inventor of what we now call “estate planning.” Ives made scads of money in this line, but it wasn’t until the end of his life he began to receive recognition for his music, most significantly from Leonard Bernstein, who programed one of his symphonies for a New York Philharmonic concert.

Link one is to the third movement of Ives’s Holliday Symphony: The Fourth of July. This is truly difficult music, to listen to and to play (note that two conductors are used in this performance). Nevertheless, the work is also tremendous good fun, chock full of quotes of American tunes, mostly patriotic ones. For example, listen for the tuba early into the piece playing Columbia the Gem of the Ocean (a favorite of Ives), softly and slow. Listeners will may glean from this piece understanding why turn-of-the-last-century audiences had a bit of difficulty with Ives’s music.

Link two isn’t difficult at all in the listening, just fun. It is however, like the last piece, difficult to play:Variations on ‘America‘ (My Country ’tis of Thee) for organ, composed when Ives was but 17 years old and already a virtuoso on that instrument. Watch the organist’s feet (appropriately adorned) flying about the pedalboard toward the end.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.