Ives Retrospective 150:

Revitalizing Ives as organist

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Charles Ives’s birth, this project presents a performance-revitalization of his work as a church organist in Danbury, New Haven, and New York during his early life (c. 1888-1902).

A five-part concert series held in Montreal, Quebec will examine Ives’s five extant complete works for organ, considering his early compositional practices, technical proficiency, and wide-ranging stylistic influences.

Each concert will premiere several of eight new reconstructions of lost organ works from the same period. These reconstructions draw on several pieces of surviving material: (1) fragmented manuscripts found in the Ives Papers (Yale University), (2) Ives’s own reports of re-purposing materials from early organ voluntaries and concert-pieces in works for other instruments, (3) critical studies of Ives’s instrumental arrangement methodologies, and (4) the performance practice of influential 19th-century organists and pedagogues such as Dudley Buck and Horatio Parker.

Interested in bringing this project near you?

Any of the reconstructions or performances may be played elsewhere upon request. I will be performing them throughout New England as part of the sesquicentennial year, and elsewhere upon request.

Series concerts:

“… not to be played in church …"

A concert for choir and organ celebrating the sesquicentennial year of American avant-garde composer Charles Ives. His earliest works are among his least-heard; written for the organ, an instrument he abandoned at age 27. In 1890, Ives accompanied his father George and other local musicians in concerts in neighbouring towns, where he gave the first public performances of his own compositions. As a 14 year old, Ives employed tactics that European modernists would not until decades later -- he reportedly shocked the audiences with a melody played in three keys simultaneously, as well as choral writing that jumped more than an octave every two notes. As he noted later, one of his organ variations "was not to be played in church, as it made the boys laugh and become noisy!"

The “Danbury Psalms” 42, 67, 90

Canzonetta

Canons from Prof. Parker’s class at Yale

Variations on America (1892 ms. version with reconstructed polytonal canon)