"Concord-Sonata"

"Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect Truth". (C.E.Ives)

"CONCORD-SONATA"

by Roberto Ramadori,  30.05.2013.

"Concord, Mass., 1840-1860", subtitle of Charles Ives' Second Piano Sonata, was performed for the first time in its unabridged version by John Kirkpatrick on January, the 20^th , 1939 at New York Town Hall. This subtitle refers to the town of Concord in Massachussetts, and to the years in which Concord was the centre from which Trascendentalist philosophy sprang. In the struggle against the over-powering influence of Rationalism and Empyrism, Trascendentalism, with is mystical and philosophical traits and with its social criticism, placed emphasis on individual's self-realiance.

The four characters, after whom each four movement are named, met and lived between 1840 and 1860 in Concord, which Gorlier has aptly named "the cultural golden section" of that times. Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher, brilliant visionary and prophet preached against the dangers of materialism and advocated the purification of the soul from sensual and egoistic elements so as to enable it to be united with God. In Europe Friederich Nietzsche was the first to adopt Emerson's ideas and to acknowledge his accomplished rhetorics.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom Melville dedicated his masterpiece "Moby Dick", was indeed "... a restless puritan spirit, convinced that there existed endless evil born from the contrast between body and soul... he explores his characters' egos with pre-junghian intuitions...". In this "Fantastic Tales" he acknowledges with "... terrible hilarity... that the world is overcome by evil and that there is no chance of salvation...".

The Alcotts, writers and paedagogists, advocated a naturalistic and secular approach to education. In 1868 Amos Bronson Alcott and his daughter Luisa May, a teacher and novelist, author of "Little Women", both came under the influence of Emerson's Transcendentalism; they became his friends and wrote for his magazine "Dial".

Henry David Thoreau, who was also counsellor to many politicians, was an adamant opposer of the new-born industrial revolution and of racist ideology. For two years he lived as a pioneer and later he wrote about this intense experience in his autobiographical work entitled "Walden", 1854. Some of its pages surely inspired the naturalistic diaphaneities which characterize the fourth movement, dedicated to the great American politician.

Two main themes are the whole work's foundation. The Beethoven Fifth Symphony's theme is paraphrased, so that the traditional meaning of "destiny knocking on the door" in transcendentalistic version becomes "the soul knocking on the door of divine mysteries, radiant in faith which it will be disclosed and the human will become D i v i n e" (C.E.Ives, Essay Before a Sonata, 1920).

The second theme, which is hymnodic, inspires third movement and it is closely linked, with clear underlying mystical and metaphorical references to the reconciliation of opposites, to the theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in flute's melody performed at the end of fourth movement.

The originality of Ives' musical language lies in its capability of mounting a combination of dense and complex heterogenous materials according to a digression caotic in great part.. According to Ives, the intentionally, elaborate technical difficulty in performance strives to "toughen up the muscles of hearing, of the brain and perhaps also those of the soul"(C.E.Ives, Essay Before a Sonata, 1920). He uses every kind of intervals and chord structures that will go more beyond traditional harmony: the sequences of major/minor seconds in "piano-tone clusters"; polytonal experiences, and harmonic/enharmonic clusters. The most famous set of "clusters" is self-evident on "Hawthorne", 2^nd movement of Ives' "Concord-Sonata". That is mammoth piano chords which require a wooden bar almost 15 inches long to play. The gentle clusters produced by the felt-or flannel-covered bar represent the sound of far-off church bells.The music's syntax is absolutely unpredictable. On listening to the result, one can easily lose track of that to such a degree that it is hard to recall the music itself. Ives also makes use of external aids: a viola at the end of first movement and even a flute (both of them ad libitum) at the end of forth movement, where the impressionistic evanescences evokes the evolution of nature and of humanity tending towards the "Divine Spirit".

Biographics include:

Vivian Perlis, Charles Ives Remembered (1974, reissued 1994)

Jan Swafford, Charles Ives, A Life with Music (1996)

J.Peter Burkholder, All Mode of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Use of Musical Borrowing (1996)

Among the best "Concord-Sonata" Cd-Recordings, I wish report this one!!!

Discography | www.charlesives.org 
[inserimento nella discografia on line a cura della Charles Ives Society 31.07.2019

Roberto Ramadori (Symposion 1SCL0602)

recensione Scott Mortensen su www.musicweb-international.com

Brig-Glis, Kanton Wallis. 16th of June 2020,  from Samsung Tablet , roberto