Listening to Charles Ives

J. Peter Burkholder is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He is the author of the recent editions of A History of Western Music (2019, with Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca) and Norton Anthology of Western Music (2019, with Claude V. Palisca). He has served as president of the American Musicological Society and of the Charles Ives Society.

• ForewordAcknowledgmentsTimelineIntroductionChapter 1: A Most Unusual Career, and a Recital of SongsMemories • The Circus Band • Walking • The Cage • Down East • General William Booth Enters into HeavenChapter 2: An American Musical ChildhoodHoliday Quickstep • Variations on “America”Chapter 3: ApprenticeshipFeldeinsamkeit • Ich grolle nicht • Symphony No. 1 in D MinorChapter 4: Weaving the ThreadsString Quartet No. 1 • Psalm 67 • Yale-Princeton Football GameChapter 5: Seeking and FindingCentral Park in the Dark • The Unanswered QuestionChapter 6: Synthesizing American and European MusicSymphony No. 2Chapter 7: A New FormSymphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting • The Violin SonatasChapter 8: American HolidaysA Symphony: New England HolidaysChapter 9: American HistoriesOrchestral Set No. 1: Three Places in New England • Orchestral Set No. 2Chapter 10: American LiteraturePiano Sonata No. 2: Concord, Mass., 1840-1860Chapter 11: Transcendent JourneysString Quartet No. 2 • Symphony No. 4Chapter 12: Collecting Songs, and Late Works114 Songs • Psalm 90EpilogueSelected ReadingSelected ListeningAbout the Author

Despite the recognition Charles Ives has received in the last 50 years, many concertgoers still find listening to Ives a bewildering, even unpleasant experience. In this, his fifth book on the American composer, Ives authority J. Peter Burkholder hopes to change that. He examines 20 works in chronological order of composition and an equal number of Ives's songs to illustrate his evolution from a creator of works in conventional musical traditions and forms to ones of original conception, radical technique, and high spiritual striving. Burkholder uses biography to place each of these works within the context of Ives's life and intellectual experiences at the time of its composition; musical analysis to illustrate his compositional techniques, structural logic, and aesthetic/philosophical purposes; and performance history to trace the changing perception of his once-daunting creations. Burkholder also seeks to place Ives and his music in the mainstream of Western musical history rather than viewing him as an isolated and eccentric artist out of contact with the musical world around him. This book can be enjoyed at all levels, from those as yet unacquainted with Ives's wide-ranging output, to those who have been listening to him with wonder and pleasure for a lifetime. Highly recommended.