DESCRIPTION:
The Best of Charles Edward Ives (October 20 1874 – May 19 1954)

Ives is one of the first American composers of international renown, though his music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, he came to be regarded as an "American original". Ives combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatoric elements, and quarter tones, foreshadowing many musical innovations of the 20th century.

Sources of Ives' tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs, the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster. He's been dubbed the greatest American composer by such cultural shapers as Time magazine and Leonard Bernstein who once remarked "You've never heard of Charles Ives? That's OK - he wouldn't have cared". Writing music was largely a part-time activity for Ives as he earned his living as an insurance agent.

0:00 The Unanswered Question
6:07 Violin Sonata No. 1. II: Largo cantabile
12:03 Violin Sonata No. 3. I. Adagio - Andante - Allegretto - Adagio
24:24 Three Places in New England: Putnam's Camp II
29:46 Three Places in New England: The Housatonic at Stockbridge III
33:54 Symphony No. 2. I: Andante moderato
40:10 Symphony No. 2. V: Allegro molto vivace
50:27 Symphony No. 4. III: Fugue: Andante moderato con moto
57:04 Central Park in the Dark
1:04:21 The Things Our Fathers Loved
1:06:08 Memories
1:08:38 The Circus Band
1:11:40 They are There!
1:14:32 Tom Sails Away
1:17:21 Tone Roads No. 1
1:20:42 Psalm 100
1:22:17 Hallowe'en (from "Three Outdoor Scenes")
1:24:18 Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass, 1840–60 IV: "Thoreau" (after Henry David Thoreau)