Orchestral Set Archive

Charles IVES: Three Places in New England; Orchestral Set No. 2; New England Holidays – Seattle Symph./Ludovic Morlot – Seattle Symphony Media

by Audiophile Audition | Jul 23, 2017 | Classical CD Reviews

Charles IVES: Three Places in New England; Orchestral Set No. 2; New England Holidays – Seattle Symphony/Ludovic Morlot – Seattle Symphony Media SSM1015 (6/02/2017) 78:08 ****: Fresh readings of this American iconclast’s well-known music. Charles Ives, the insurance man and amateur musician turned revolutionary composer remains an “American original” whose music concert goers either greatly enjoy or not so much. He would probably have it no other way. Ives was, by all accounts, someone in love with the sights and sounds of his country but who was also deeply amused by the cliché of tradition and by what he considered the boredom of traditional concert hall music and a disdain for what—in the early third of the twentieth century—was a form of contemporary composition that Ives found, basically ‘too European.’ So, he became very well known for taking the sights and sounds of very idiomatic American, ‘New England’ holidays and park bands and festivals and creating his own absolutely unique sound. Both Ives and his father were in the park band scene and Charles grew up participating in church music as well. With Ives there was no formal book for harmony and invention. He used texture, orchestration, dissonance and consonance […]