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Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos (1924)
Donald Berman:
"Ives crafted the Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos in 1924 from sketches he made in 1904-1914. His curiosity about extensions of standard tuning came naturally. Ives' father was a notorious tinkerer and loved to experiment with sound:
"'... my father had a weakness for quarter-tones -- in fact he didn't stop even with them. He rigged up a contrivance to stretch 24 or more violin strings and tuned them up to suit the dictates of his own curiosity. He would pick out quarter-tone tunes and try to get the family to sing them, but I remember he gave that up except as a means of punishment -- though we got to like some of the tunes which kept to the usual scale and had quarter-tone notes thrown in ...
"'Father had "absolute pitch," as men say. But it seemed to disturb him; he seemed half ashamed of it. "Everything is relative," he said. "Nothing but fools and taxes are absolute." A friend who was a "thorough musician" -- he had graduated from the New England Conservatory at Boston -- asked why with his sensitive ear he liked to sit down and beat out dissonances on the piano. "Well," he answered, "I may have absolute pitch, but, thank God, that piano hasn't."' (Ives)
"Ives's curiosity was thorough. He meticulously considered theories of quarter-tones, and produced tables of quarter-tone scale possibilities. (The standard Western scale is comprised of 12 semitones). Charts of ratios between harmonic overtones, resembling the actuarial tables of his insurance business, fill the early sketches for the quarter-tone works. When he turned to these sketches to write the Three Quarter-Tone Pieces, he also produced an essay, 'Some Quarter-Tone Impressions.'
"Ives was pedagogic, but not polemical, about writing music outside the realm of conventional tonality. 'Why tonality as such should be thrown out for good, I can't see. Why it should always be present, I can't see ... if an addition of a series of smaller tone divisions is to be added to our semi-tone system "to help round out our souls," how much of a fight will the ears have to put up?' He concluded about the stacked chords he constructed, '... if listened to several times in succession, it gathers a kind of character of its own -- neither major, minor, nor even diminished.' (Ives)
"Movements i and iii were originally conceived for one piano with two keyboards tuned a quarter-tone apart. Eventually, Ives adopted the two-piano approach (one piano tuned a quarter-tone apart from the other). Ives's focus in movements i and iii is primarily harmonic, as he broadly sets out processional and hymn-like music, allowing the ear time to absorb the complexities of the strange quarter-tone hybrid chords. Above the chordal accompaniment, Ives spins a cantabile line that bounces between the two differently-tuned pianos. Singing out his Yankee independence, Ives borrows motivically from 'America' ('My country 'tis of thee'), particularly highlighting the words 'land where my fathers died!'
"The high-spirited second movement splits rhythmically between the two pianos. The quarter-tone interplay bends the ear and tickles the mind. It features quick ragtime vamping and polyrhythms.
"Ultimately the three movements are an homage to his inventive father: 'The quarter-tone family, like most other families, has a sense of humor. But that's a rather dangerous thing to refer to; it depends as much on where the catcher's mitt is as on the pitcher's curves.' (Ives)"
Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos, performed by Donald Berman and Stephen Drury, written by Charles Ives, New World Records #80618-2 © 2004 (p) 2004 Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc. Used by permission.
Although virtually unknown until he ceased composing in 1925, Charles Ives (1874-1954) is considered one of the first great composers of concert music in the United States. His wholly original compositional voice represented a fundamental break with the European tradition and anticipated many musical techniques later developed elsewhere.
Ives was the son of the youngest bandmaster in the Union Army, George E. Ives, who was well-versed in many areas of music including counterpoint, ear training, and acoustics. George Ives shared an enthusiasm and curiosity about sound with his son, often engaging him in experiments with polytonality as well as grounding him in the music of Bach. Through his father, Ives acquired a similar interest in the exploration of traditional music of the United States and the European classical tradition. By the age of 12 he was composing, and by 14 he was the youngest salaried church organist in Connecticut. Through his work in various area churches, Ives became acquainted with numerous chanted psalms; these he would set to music, exploring such musical ideas as parallel triads, polytonality, and dissonant canon.
From 1894 to 1898 Ives attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. There he studied with Horatio Parker and soon realized he would have to keep his freest musical experiments to himself. Although somewhat ungrateful to Parker, Ives' compositional abilities were significantly improved under his tutelage, rendering such works as the First Symphony (c. 1898-1908) and String Quartet No. 1 (c. 1897-1900). In 1899 Ives moved to New York where he began to work in insurance, a job at which he was so skilled that it became a fruitful lifelong career. He continued to compose prolifically, however, writing The Unanswered Question (c. 1908) and Central Park in the Dark (c. 1909) while courting his wife-to-be Harmony Twichell.
While on vacation for health concerns in 1906, Ives and his friend and colleague Julius Myrick decided to form their own agency, Ives & Co. (later to become Ives & Myrick). In a few years they had a volume of business in insurance training that led the country. After leaving New York in 1911, Ives composed a number of works inspired by nature and transcendentalism, including the Concord piano sonata (c. 1916-1919) and the First Orchestral Set: Three Places in New England (c. 1912-1921). The following year Ives and his wife bought part of a farm in West Redding, Connecticut, dividing their time between it and New York City. The next few years produced such works as the Fourth Symphony (c. 1912-1925) and the World War I-inspired songs "In Flanders Fields", "He is there!", and "Tom Sails Away" (all 1917).
After Ives suffered a heart attack in 1918, he began to put his music in order, sending free printed copies to musicians he hoped would be interested. Several years later, just as performances of his music were occurring more frequently, Ives stopped composing new works altogether, apparently due to exhaustion and poor health. After 1925 he only revised and completed earlier works and finally retired from the insurance business as well.
From the late 1920's onward, Ives' compositions were premiered with increasing frequency. Significant performances included Three Places in New England by the Boston Chamber Orchestra, John Kirkpatrick's performances of the Concord sonata, and seven songs performed by Hubert Linscott and Aaron Copland at the first Yaddo festival in 1932. The growing acknowledgment and appreciation of Ives' music led to a Pulitzer Prize in 1947. Seven years later he died of a stroke at the age of 80.
related websites
http://www.charlesives.org
Pianist Donald Berman is a champion of new works by living composers, overlooked music by twentieth-century masters, and recitals that link classical and modern repertoires. His two-volume The Unknown Ives on the New World Records label features premiere recordings of unpublished works by Charles Ives. Berman has been a featured recitalist at Miller Theatre, League/ISCM at Merkin Hall, Masters of Tomorrow series in Germany, French Cultural Services (Fauré Sesquicentennial), Goethe Institute, and many others. In fall 2002, he directed the American Academy in Rome Concerts at Carnegie Hall, a series featuring the work of 36 American composers who have received the Rome Prize; in 2008 the music was released in a 4-CD box set on Bridge Records. Berman is a prizewinner of the 1991 Schubert International Competition, a member of the Dinosaur Annex contemporary ensemble, and co-director of the New Music Ensemble at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. He studied with Leonard Shure at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, George Barth at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and privately with John Kirkpatrick and Mildred Victor. He has recorded for the Bridge, CRI, and New World labels.
Pianist, conductor, and teacher Stephen Drury has performed throughout the world with a repertoire ranging from Bach and Liszt to John Cage and György Ligeti. He has commissioned new works for solo from John Cage, Terry Riley, Chinary Ung, and John Zorn, and has recorded for the BMG, Catalyst, mode, MusicMasters, Neuma, New Albion, and Tzadik labels. Selected by the United States Information Agency for its Artistic Ambassador Program, Drury held recital tours in Europe in 1986 and Hong Kong, Japan, and Pakistan in 1988. In 1999 he was invited by choreographer Merce Cunningham to perform onstage with Cunningham and Mikhail Baryshnikov as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Drury received his musical training at Harvard College and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, studying with Claudio Arrau, Patricia Zander, William Masselos, Margaret Ott, and Theodore Lettvin. He currently teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music.
related websites
http://www.donaldbermanpiano.com
http://www.stephendrury.com
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