Charles Ives… vampire hunter?

For Charles Ives’ birthday, here are two Halloween-specific pieces. You can listen to them both in just over three minutes.

First, my favorite recording of “Hallowe’en” (1907), in its original version for string quartet and piano, since it actually includes the bass drum. Ives later orchestrated the work, but it just ain’t the same. The composer wrote, “It’s a take-off of a Halloween party and bonfire – the elfishness of the little boys throwing wood on the fire, etc., etc… it is a joke even Herbert Hoover could get.”

And then this wisp of a song, “Slugging a Vampire” (1902). Ives had originally set Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Tarrant Moss,” but then when he couldn’t secure the rights, he went ahead and supplied his own whimsical text. The words are included in the video at the link.

Take that, you bloodsuckers! Happy Halloween, from Charles Ives!