# Charles Ives - Symphony No. 2



## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

How do you rate this piece?

Performed by the New York Philharmonic
Conducted by Leonard Bernstein


----------



## REP (Dec 8, 2011)

My favorite Ives symphony is actually the much-neglected first, which is a straightforward symphony in the Romantic style. But I really just want to share an interesting thought I had about Ives last night as I was reading Giorgio Sanguinetti's excellent _The Art of Partimento_. At one point, the author describes the conditions of an 18th-century Neapolitan conservatory and how all the students practiced together in one large room, creating a noisy cacophony that someone like Ives might well have relished. Sanguinetti quotes the famous musician, historian, and composer Charles Burney, who visited Naples in 1770:


> Wednesday, October 31. This morning I went with young Oliver to his Conservatorio of St. Onofrio, and visited all the rooms where the boys practise, sleep, and eat. On the first
> flight of stairs was a trumpeter, screaming upon his instrument till he was ready to
> burst; on the second was a french-horn, bellowing in the same manner. In the common
> practising room there was a Dutch concert, consisting of seven or eight harpsichords,
> ...


Anyway, this reminded me of Ives because I've seen some people explain his polytonality by how he used to hear different marching bands practicing at the same time, creating a similar cacophony to the one that Burney heard in Naples in 1770. It made me wonder if polytonality could have been "discovered" centuries earlier if one of these young musicians had been inspired to wrote down the music he heard every day in his practice room. Of course, in that day and age, he probably would have been chased out of town! But it's an interesting thought nonetheless.


----------



## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

My favorite Ives symphony is the unnumbered "Holidays", but the 2nd is a wonderful piece too. It shows that Ives' mastery of random noise was founded on solid ground: the symphony is still fairly traditional, spiced up with the folk song citations that would be a hallmark of his later style.
Bernstein's rendition (above) is spirited and appropriately nationalistic - but here and there he falsified and exaggerated Ives's score for greater effect (the last chord!). Which is something that Ives himself provoked, with his habit of altering his scores, making them more dissonant while still maintaining the original composition date, making him look much more of a modernist pioneer than he really was.
I prefer Tilson Thomas' Concertgebouworkest recording. Warm, not exaggerated and with splendid orchestral playing.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I voted Very Good. Like many other people my age I was introduced to it by a Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concert. His first recording is still the imprint, although others have used a more corrected version. Bernstein was the exactly right conductor for the work. Bernard Herrmann loved it, but his stodgy tempos just rule it out. Fun symphony to play, too. What's really interesting is trying to recognize the vast number of quotations from Americana tunes. And sadly, knowing too many younger players who have zero recognition of Turkey in the Straw, Columbia the Gem of the Ocean, Camptown Races, and such.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Ives's early symphonies sound heavily influenced by Dvorak. Of course he paid tribute to the famous Largo movement in his first symphony.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Many of Ives' works have complicated histories in terms of performing editions, and this piece is no exception. Ives had a view of scores as not fixed but works in progress, which adds up to an editor's nightmare. Even after largely stopping composing in the 1920's, Ives was up on the latest developments in European music, so he often went back to scores and added things which he thought might improve them in light of the most recent innovations.

The score for the first performance of his second symphony by Bernstein was prepared by Henry Cowell, but a lot has had to be changed since. Ives scholar Jonathan Elkus summarises some of the issues:

_When the Charles Ives Society engaged me to prepare their critical edition of the Second Symphony, I had long been a student of Ives's life and work and knew that within every major task lay its unique web of error and enigma. Too, I had grown up with Leonard Bernstein's vinyl recording that for a half century has been the molding icon for every performance since his premiere of the Second in Carnegie Hall toward the end of Ives's life. Ives's physical vitality and attention span were by that time too limited for him to be of much help to Henry Cowell, whom Ives had asked to prepare for Bernstein - and for publication - a score based on his 1907-10 pencil holograph. Though that 1951 score includes some touches known to be at least initiated by Ives (like the three-measure Columbia/Reveille tag and - assumedly – the organist's 'crash' that conclude the finale), the responsibility for other additions and omissions is unknown because no working material survives. But most damagingly - through adverse circumstance and much to Ives's disappointment when he finally heard Bernstein's performance ten days later on the radio - the 1951 score omits crucial tempo markings within the second movement and garbles them in the fifth, surely misleading Bernstein to his easygoing pacing of these and to his languorous interpretations of their lyric interior sections. The sum and substance is that the Ives Society’s edition fixes nearly a thousand errors great and small from that hastily prepared and ill-proofread 1951 edition, and revives the option of repeating the second movement’s exposition. For the record, Bernstein’s habitual, extensive, and inexplicable cut in the finale is not replicated in the 1951 score, nor is his trademark prolongation of the final ‘crash’, which in fact Bernstein seems not to have introduced until his first commercial recording made four years after Ives’s death._

Source: Ives: Symphony No. 2 / Robert Browning Overture


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I think of the Ives's Second as probably the composer's most representative symphony, and it has long ranked as my favorite of the set, though I remain fond of all the symphonies. The First is certainly lovely -- a true Romantic joy. I sometimes think Ives likely wrote it, lamentingly with consideration of his music teachers, with the attitude "There! That's done! Now leave me alone to write my music." The Third is a masterpiece, yet I rank it low among my affections for Ives's works and I visit it less often than I do the other symphonies. I'd just rather hear the other symphonies. The Fourth reminds me of the sound-world of the Second, but I find the Second the more beautiful as an Ivesian work of art. The Fourth is kind of a "Ninth Symphony" for Ives, and I'm stunned each time I hear it. Of course, I love the "Holidays" Symphony, but the individual movements, all very Ivesian, do not hold together well as a unified "symphony" the way the other four do. It remains more a Suite to my tastes.


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

To my ears it's an excellent work, currently my eighth favorite symphony #2 by anyone (Elgar's, Mahler's, Mendelssohn's, Sibelius', Brahms', Rachmaninoff's and Borodin's are the only ones to come first to my taste). 8.5 out of 10 in terms of how much I like it. I only know it by the Bernstein recording.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> I only know it by the Bernstein recording.


Give the Litton recording on Hyperion a hearing and also the Naxos disk.


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I voted very good I lobe the Bernstein recordings, closely followed by Michael Tilson Thomas with the R.C.O


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I voted excellent because I have a deep affection for this symphony, but I think his 4th is his symphonic masterpiece overall.


----------



## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

Very good , I listened to the Bernstein NYP recording again yesterday , the one I like the best. I too value his 4th symphony the highest .


----------



## Georgieva (7 mo ago)

Very good for me too.


----------



## RandallPeterListens (Feb 9, 2012)

For me, Charles Ives is one of the few composers who it is possible to both love and hate at the same time. The Second Symphony is really quite good, but as others have said, it is the Fourth which is quintessentially "Ivesian". To my mind, the best Ives can be summed up as the work of a curmudgeonly cantankerous Yankee who melancholicly yearned for an American golden age which had already past. Other works, such as the microtonal piano pieces and the (to me) incomprehensible Concord Sonata just seem to be the work of a guy just thumbing his nose at the then-current musical establishment. For me the best of Ives are the 115 (?) Songs which are equivalent to Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes in the pop world - a collection of widely diverse musical styles and themes some of which are awful and some or which are really transcendent.


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Coincidentally, I just recently purchased and listened to the new-ish Gustavo Dudamel/LA Phil recording from DG of the Ives symphony cycle. It has really lovely sound and is well worth a listen.









Charles Ives: Complete Symphonies


Charles Ives: Complete Symphonies. DG: 4839502. Buy CD or download online. Marta Gardolińska (chorus conductor) Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Gustavo Dudamel



www.prestomusic.com


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

MatthewWeflen said:


> Coincidentally, I just recently purchased and listened to the new-ish Gustavo Dudamel/LA Phil recording from DG of the Ives symphony cycle. It has really lovely sound and is well worth a listen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


An unexpectedly good cycle, indeed! I didn't really peg Dudamel as an Ivesian, but he surprised the hell out of me. Let's hope Dudamel continues down these odd musical roads.


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Neo Romanza said:


> An unexpectedly good cycle, indeed! I didn't really peg Dudamel as an Ivesian, but he surprised the hell out of me. Let's hope Dudamel continues down these odd musical roads.


I hope he continues them with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

MatthewWeflen said:


> I hope he continues them with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.


As guest conductor? I'm confused. I thought he had signed an extension to his LA Philharmonic contract?


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Neo Romanza said:


> As guest conductor? I'm confused. I thought he had signed an extension to his LA Philharmonic contract?


Aw, doo-doo. Never mind. I was hoping he would replace Muti but somehow that extension eluded me.


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

MatthewWeflen said:


> Coincidentally, I just recently purchased and listened to the new-ish Gustavo Dudamel/LA Phil recording from DG of the Ives symphony cycle. It has really lovely sound and is well worth a listen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Darn it! Looks like a must-buy. I find Ives' symphonies totally absorbing and fascinating.


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Darn it! Looks like a must-buy. I find Ives' symphonies totally absorbing and fascinating.


It _is_ a must-buy. It was a cycle that totally surprised the hell out of me and, again, the reason why was I never thought Dudamel as an Ivesian. I'm glad to have been proven wrong.


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Neo Romanza said:


> It _is_ a must-buy. It was a cycle that totally surprised the hell out of me and, again, the reason why was I never thought Dudamel as an Ivesian. I'm glad to have been proven wrong.





Neo Romanza said:


> It _is_ a must-buy. It was a cycle that totally surprised the hell out of me and, again, the reason why was I never thought Dudamel as an Ivesian. I'm glad to have been proven wrong.


Dudamel regularly surprises me! Maybe it was more predictable, but his handling of the music for the new(ish) West Side Story film was superb. A genuinely great conductor.


----------



## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

I personally can't stand Duhamel in anything he does, and his Ives is no exception.



Pat Fairlea said:


> Darn it! Looks like a must-buy. I find Ives' symphonies totally absorbing and fascinating.


They are, but Duhamel's set is far from a must-buy. If you want a complete set by one conductor, Tilson Thomas should be a first choice, Davis and Litton are great as well. And there are superb single recordings by Bernstein, Stokowski, Mehta, Dohnanyi etc.


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

RobertJTh said:


> I personally can't stand Duhamel in anything he does, and his Ives is no exception.
> 
> 
> They are, but Duhamel's set is far from a must-buy. If you want a complete set by one conductor, Tilson Thomas should be a first choice, Davis and Litton are great as well. And there are superb single recordings by Bernstein, Stokowski, Mehta, Dohnanyi etc.


Oh well, there are plenty of us that think otherwise! Also, Andrew Davis' Ives is far from excellent --- I find it rather dull and lifeless. He's great in many composers, but Ives isn't one of them.


----------

