Charles IVES (1874-1954)
Piano Sonata No 1 (1901-1916, rev. 1921-1927) [40:46]
Bernhard GANDER (b. 1969)
Peter Parker (2004) [11:23]
Charles IVES
Three-Page Sonata (1907-1914, rev. 1925-1926) [8:10]
Joonas Ahonen (piano & celesta)
rec. August 2019, Sendesaal Bremen, Germany
BIS BIS-2409 SACD [61:27]
Ives’s second piano sonata, the celebrated Concord Sonata, has attained the status of a modernist classic. I have heard it live and in several recordings and I have to admit that I have yet to be convinced that it is really a fully coherent work, though it is a fascinating one. In contrast, his first piano sonata is far less well known and I had not previously come across it..
It turns out to be a work of comparable length and complexity to the Concord. Ives wrote a description of it, which begins: ‘What is it about? Mostly about the outdoor life in Connecticut villages in the eighties and nineties – impressions, remembrances, and reflections of country farmers in the Connecticut farmland.’ On another occasion he described the work as ‘the family together in the first and last movements, the boy away, sowing his oats in the ragtimes, and the parental anxiety in the middle movement.’ He worked on it over a long period – Ives was notoriously reluctant to finalize and publish his works. It did not receive its premiere until 1949 or publication until 1954, the year of Ives’s death.
It is in five movements. The first and last each go through several changes of mood and tempo. The second and fourth movements are both scherzi, of a kind, though each is divided into two parts. The central movement is mainly slow, though with an Allegro middle section. As always with Ives, scraps of hymn tunes are quoted and indeed provide the main thematic material; the booklet gives a useful list of them. There are also borrowings from other works of his. The hymn tunes obviously had a particular resonance for Ives, being remembered from his childhood in small town New England, but they are unlikely to have the same significance to most listeners. I think we have to treat them in the same way as the scraps of popular tunes in the works of Mahler or Shostakovich, by which I mean that you do not need to know or recognize them to appreciate the work.
The idiom is dissonant, but not unduly so and there is a good deal of quiet, meditative writing as well as some of the thumping and banging we expect from Ives. The ragtimes Ives referred to turn up in the second and fourth movements while the slow movement is a theme and variations. The finale is based on a three-note motif and is dissonant and complex, though there are moments of calm in the middle and at the very end. I found this an accessible and successful work, possibly even more so than the Concord Sonata.
The other Ives work here is the Three-Page Sonata, so called because that is the length of the manuscript, written on three very large pages. It was first published in 1949. It is in three short movements, played without a break The opening begins with a transposed version of the BACH motif and is in a kind of sonata form but without a recapitulation. The central movement evokes the Westminster Chimes, familiar to all Londoners and BBC radio listeners. Ives recommended reinforcing the impression of bells by having another player or bells or ideally a celesta to double the line. That is done here, with Ahonen double tracking a celesta. The finale begins with a twelve-tone row, long before Schoenberg developed his serial technique, and continues with a march, waltz and ragtime. This is an attractive piece: a kind of pocket Ives.
Between the two Ives works we have Peter Parker by Bernhard Gander. He is an Austrian composer based in Vienna, who likes writing works for unusual combinations. Peter Parker is the alter ego of the comic book character Spiderman. Gander writes: ‘The metamorphosis of P.P. into a spider man, the graphic representation of the body in action, flying, springing… inspired me to deal with sound in a similar way.’ The piece represents jumping, flying, running, falling, holding on and casting a spider’s web. All this is conveyed through very energetic piano writing, but I must admit it left me cold. Perhaps you have to be a fan of Spiderman to appreciate it. I wish we had had more Ives instead.
However, I am full of enthusiasm for Joonas Ahonen’s performances of the Ives pieces. He brings a more meditative and lyrical approach to these than I have previously found with Ives and brings him more into the mainstream of twentieth century piano composition – something Ives himself, who was consistently disparaging about most other composers – might not have welcomed. Ahonen has previously recorded the Concord Sonata to much praise (review ~ review) and is thoroughly familiar with the idiom. The recording is good and the sleeve notes very helpful. If you want to explore Ives beyond the Concord Sonata this is a good place to go to.
Stephen Barber
Previous review: Dan Morgan
