“Are my ears on wrong?” remarked Charles Ives, wondering at how out of step with musical convention his own compositions could be. Yet he soldiered on, writing works of all stripes, tonalities and quasi-tonalities, even atonality, navigating with remarkable certainty for 30 years with very few performances to affirm his chosen course.
I’m not saying anything which hasn’t been said before in declaring he was an American original and one of the great voices of our native music. Ives’ works are imbued with nostalgia and a sense of man’s humble aspirations as part of the great, ungraspable machinery of the universe.
Yowling church choirs stand shoulder to shoulder with cranky, cracker barrel political debates. Mischievous children pull Fourth of July pranks as marching bands turn back upon themselves. Even in the heart of the city, little dramas play out under a starry, infinite sky.
No less than Gustav Mahler – who declared a symphony must be like the world, it must contain everything – Ives embraces in his works the most unassuming folk song or popular tune. He tosses them into a box like so many wheat pennies, bottle caps, campaign buttons and marbles. The box becomes a cornerstone for a whitewashed church with an impossibly tall steeple. The steeple acts as a conveyor of invisible impulses that permeate everything.
Today is the 140th anniversary of Ives’ birth. Join me for a verse of “Happy Birthday,” Ives-style, singing in the key of E-flat while a pianist accompanies us in C Major. Maybe we’ve had a little too much to drink, so we have a hard time keeping together. Somebody decides they’ve started too high, so midway through they take it down an octave. Another hangs on to the last note after everyone else has finished.
Then imagine the sound joining with that of a high school band practicing in the distance. A mail carrier whistles. The strains of a violin emerge from an open window. Someone has on their car radio as they work under the hood. These expressions of humanity blend into a magnificent streamer, unfurled by unseen hands to envelop the earth and continue into the beyond.
Happy birthday, Charles Ives!
Here’s Ives’ “Hallowe’en” (1906): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emPYJGE07y0
One of his songs, “Charlie Rutlage” (1920): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahhLImmYH2Q
“The Fourth of July” (1912): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkM6GQBUrqk
PHOTO: “When you hear strong masculine music like this, get up and USE YOUR EARS LIKE A MAN!” – Charles Ives
