Charles Ives, Complete Symphonies Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, conductor. Deutsche Grammophon, 2 CDs, B0033369-02, 2020.

Abstract

The symphonies of Charles Ives have undergone a recording renaissance in the past five years, with commercial releases coming from three prominent conductors and orchestras. The first set, recorded by Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony in 2014 and 2016, featured the Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies over two separate albums. Three years later (2019), Michael Tilson Thomas, whose recordings of the symphonies from the 1980s have been touchstones for years, rerecorded the Third and Fourth Symphonies with the San Francisco Symphony. The latest entry into the Ives symphony collection may surprise at first blush; after a series of concerts and events focusing on connections between the music of Dvořák and Ives, Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic recorded all four Ives symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon in February 2020, just before the coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic shut down the ensemble. It was released later that year on streaming services, and in early 2021 on CD. Of all the recent entries, Dudamel’s is perhaps the most exciting, given his celebrity status as a conductor as well as his previously unknown interest in Ives’s music. On the whole, this recording does not disappoint and presents these works vividly, with a freshness that captures their charm, craft, diversity, and riches. It may seem like an odd time for this renewed attention to Ives’s orchestral music given the significant focus these days on composers unlike Ives (with respect to race and gender). However, Ives’s symphonies resonate in more modern and striking ways than ever through the lens of our fractured and confusing 2022 world. The symphonies aurally depict a panorama of American music, aesthetic choices, and inspirations that mirror many elements of their creation, from the distinct European models of the First, the hybrid of European models and American source materials of the Second, the subdued spirituality of the Third, and the enigmatic Fourth with its myriad performance challenges and fusion of different styles. These works illustrate the four musical traditions in Ives’s music identified by J. Peter Burkholder in his 1996 essay for Charles Ives and His World: the American experimental tradition, American hymnody, European classical music, and American popular music. Listening to this collection today reminds one of how extensive Ives’s musical knowledge was, on the one hand quoting Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and on the other quoting Stephen Foster, protestant hymns, and ragtime licks. One concrete way to compare the musical interpretations of these three different recent Ives symphony recordings is to examine their lengths for insight into performance tempi. Here are timings for Ives’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Third Symphony: Ives, Symphony #3 Ludovic Morlot, Seattle Symphony (2016)