Ives: Vocal Music - Berkeley Chamber Singers, Alden Gilchrist

 

 1 Processional: Let There Be Light 01:57
2 Psalm 24 03:25
3 Turn Ye, Turn Ye 03:03
4 114 Songs: 38. The Collection 02:22
5 Psalm 67 02:38
6 The Harvest Home Chorales: I. Harvest Home 02:34
7 The Harvest Home Chorales: II. Lord of the Harvest 03:37
8 The Harvest Home Chorales: III. Harvest Home 01:53
9 114 Songs: 7. Disclosure 01:17
10 Soliliquy 00:38
11 114 Songs: 42. Serenity 02:15
12 114 Songs: 94. Where The Eagle Cannot See 01:43
13 In the Mornin' 01:37
14 11 Songs: Christmas Carol 02:28
15 114 Songs: 100. A Christmas Carol 02:43
16 19 Songs: General William Booth Enters Into Heaven 06:14

Much has already been said about the phenomenon" of Charles Ives the astonishing innovations and musical concepts that prefigured similar European developments in our century, or at least were carried out independently of access or knowledge of the latter. If this were all that one could say about Ives? contribution, he would have long ago vanished in the obscurity he wished for in his own private life, and he would be known, if at all, as a mere experimenter who nonetheless had provided some valuable musical resources for better composers to mine. Perhaps we might also concede that even this much, accomplished within the unpromising musical milieu of turn-of-the-century America, was deserving of a less brief remembrance. But, of course, we now know that mere novelty was not the limit of Charles Ives art and that we must now contend with the real phenomenon, Simply stated, this is that much of Ives' work is the greatest music ever written by an American and indeed among the greatest music composed in this century.That his output is often uneven in quality should occasion no surprise. All genius even that of such transcendentalists as Ives is subject to environment and period could not completely overcome a situation which forced much of his musical thought to remain on paper. [It must be remembered that no audience heard a major Ives work, with the possible exception of the Concord Sonata until long after Ives had virtually stopped composing in the early 1920’s!] The bewildering variety of Ives innovations prevents us from pigeon-holing him neatly into the categories that have served commentators on the contemporary musical scene: impressionism, atonality, polytonality, dodecaphony, etc. Ives used any or all of these approaches as they suited his musical purposes in each work. Moreover, he was not adverse to abandoning these in favor of a simpler style, even in such late songs as The Collection, Christmas Carol, or In the Mornin'...The Berkeley Singers has recorded here a representative sampling of Ives' compositions in the vocal and choral genres. The composer often uses the solo voice and chorus together, or interchangeably, even in pieces he called songs". Sometimes the word “song" connotes for Ives the so-called art song" -- for solo voice with piano accompaniment -- beloved of 19th century European composers. But at other times the term covers a type of work in which a single vocal line is to be carried -- either partially or completely -- by a unison chorus, or in which Ives has provided short interjectory passages for mixed chorus.