# 100 Favorites: # 35



## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

*Charles Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4
Michael Tilson Thomas, Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus (Sony)*










Some remarks from my Ives site about this recording:

_Along with his recording of the Holidays Symphony, Tilson Thomas' reading of Ives' Fourth is surely one of the finest Ives recordings ever made. Tilson Thomas makes no effort to normalize Ives' music. This reading can sound jarringly extreme. Just listen to the crashing, almost hallucinatory second movement. Paradoxically, Tilson Thomas' willingness to express the music's rough edges does nothing to diminish the aspects of the work that place it squarely in the Western symphonic tradition. This recording of the Fourth sounds more familiar and more grand in the "classical" sense than any other I've heard. Tilson Thomas' reading captures the variety of Ives' musical vision, whether it's sternly traditional or wildly experimental, cozily familiar or remotely mysterious. The music revels in the contradictoriness of life, from comic japes and to cosmic contemplation. Just listen to MTT's take on Ives' visionary fourth movement, Finale: Very slowly; Largo maestoso. Here is Ives' greatest exultation, his bid for all-embracing unity that encompasses the whole of life. In my view, this particular movement is not only the culmination of this symphony; it is the culmination of Ives' entire musical achievement. _


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## HIDEKI SUKENOBU (Mar 31, 2015)

The 3rd mov. was built on the fugue style. Regretablly in Japan, other performances were there only Seiji Ozawa, I remember. Pseudo-Bach style of strings were there? I might have had Michael Tilson Thomas recording. But I only remeber that disc was released from DG.


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