Ives's "Concord Sonata"

One of Charles Ives's most well-known and largest works is his Concord Sonata (properly Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60).  It is a towering achievement, a colossally difficult 45-minute work in 4 movements, with optional parts in movement 1 for viola and movement 4 for flute.  The four movements are named for transcendentalist thinkers and writers who lived in Concord, MA around the same time period.

This conglomeration of Concordians is a fascinating historical anomaly.  It is a marvel that so many influential, accomplished writers lived and worked in the same place at the right time, and that all o them are still remembered and frequently read now, 150+ years later.  Concord isn't even a huge place--it's a medium suburb of Boston, 20-30 minutes from the city--and yet all these influential figures lived there, and many knew each other well.

I live about 20 minutes from Concord, so this hits close to home for me.  One quick note, and a big pet peeve of mine: the town is pronounced like the word "conquered," not like the word "Concorde."  There is no wiggle room there -- this is how it has been and remains to be.  There is no variation on that.  For whatever reason, I have found that most people in the United States who are not from MA pronounce it "Concorde," and they are incorrect.  It's a lovely little town, filled with history and with many sights that link it to classic old New England -- quaint lines of brick shops, otherwise unassuming churches with very tall white steeples, etc.  Ives clearly loved the transcendentalists of the area, and he may well have loved the town as well, as he did spend so much time writing this piece that would immortalize the location in a new way.

Main Street, Concord: a classic, old New England look

Ives himself writes a great deal on the sonata in his "Essays Before a Sonata," published directly before the publication of the sonata.  I will use some selected quotations from his writings as points at which to  expound on something worth discussing.

The work seeks to, in some way, paint a picture of the transcendentalist movement and its leading figures; however, even Ives acknowledges in his "Essays Before a Sonata" the questionability of music's ability to truly depict any program.  In his words, "How far is anyone justified, be he an authority or a layman, in expressing or trying to express in terms of music (in sounds, if you like) the value of anything...which is usually expressed in terms other than music?" He goes on to ponder the ability of music to have an innate program, and doesn't find an answer -- it is a question worth asking, even without a d correct answer

Ives also defers to people's personal musical tastes: "A critic may say that a certain movement is not inspired. But that may be a matter of taste—perhaps the most inspired music sounds the least so—to the critic."  It is evident to this that Ives acknowledges that his music can provide only a small glimpse into one sider of these writes.  Despite this, the sonata sets out to depict this movement and its major figures.  I will focus on movement III, The Alcotts.

A quick little diversion: Bruce Hornsby uses the opening of The Alcotts as the intro to his song "Every Little Kiss."  Watch the first 17 seconds of the Hornsby music video and compare it to the opening of Ives's movement.  This is very direct quotation.

Ives, "The Alcotts"

Bruce Hornsby & the Range, "Every Little Kiss"

I tried looking deeper into this, seeing if I found some connection, in lyrics or some other way, from this song to the Concord Sonata, but I couldn't find one.  By my reckoning, chances are that this quotation does not contain some deeper meaning, but is simply used because it's a pleasant, mellifluous way to open the song.

The Alcotts refers to Bronson Alcott, an idealist thinker and generally well-known townsperson, and Louisa May Alcott, his daughter who wrote "Little Women." Ives writes that he sought not to evoke them as much as their home, a quaint building called "Orchard House," which he equates deeply with New England values and atmosphere.

The Alcotts' "Orchard House"

Of the house, Ives writes: "There is a commonplace beauty about 'Orchard House'—a kind of spiritual sturdiness underlying its quaint picturesqueness—a kind of common triad of the New England homestead, whose overtones tell us that there must have been something aesthetic fibered in the Puritan severity—the self-sacrificing part of the ideal—a value that seems to stir a deeper feeling, a stronger sense of being nearer some perfect truth than a Gothic cathedral or an Etruscan villa."

This "spiritual sturdiness underlying…quaint picturesqueness" is, in my opinion, exactly what Ives sees as the greatness throughout New England, and what inspired him to write so much about his beloved homeland.  He sees its people, descendants of Puritans, as hardy people who can work the land effectively but also see the beauty in it and have a spiritual closeness to it and each other.  They are at once practical and idealistic.  This idealistically practical concept can also be seen in another major aspect of the movement.  Ives writes:

"Within the house, on every side, lie remembrances of what imagination can do for the better amusement of fortunate children who have to do for themselves-much-needed lessons in these days of automatic, ready-made, easy entertainment which deaden rather than stimulate the creative faculty. And there sits the little old spinet-piano Sophia Thoreau gave to the Alcott children, on which Beth played the old Scotch airs, and played at the Fifth Symphony."

(Side note: the piano Ives mentions here probably never existed.  Kyle Gann discusses his research on this very topic in his blog here: PostClassic, 9/23/12)

First, this certainly shows that the concerns of the present are often the same as the concerns of the past. Just as we as a society worry about our youth's culture of instantly gratifying, overly accessible entertainment every second, so did Ives worry about youth's "automatic, ready-made, easy entertainment." Second, this brings about a meaning behind a central facet of the composition: it quotes the opening of Beethoven 5, over and over and over again. This is linked to the glorification of music as an artistically worthwhile manner of entertainment in the Alcotts' home. Ives also says of the Alcotts that "The power of repetition was to them a natural means of illustration," which I see as a direct reasoning for the insistent repetition of the Beethoven 5 quotes.

This movement is also the only one in the sonata that is consonant and easily viewed as pretty, more often than not, possibly even bordering on the sort of music that Ives said "lets the ears lie back in an easy-chair." I see this as connected to his thought that "Miss Alcott is fond of working her story around, so that she can better rub in a moral precept—and the moral sometimes browbeats the story."  The movement is excessively pretty, to evoke Alcott's excessively morally driven works.

I personally have a closer connection to "The Alcotts" in its form as transcribed for wind ensemble by Richard Thurston.

Thurston's transcription of "The Alcotts," as performed by the Oregon Wind Ensemble

I have been fortunate enough the have performed this twice, once in high school and once in undergrad, and I think it is a beautiful and effective transcription of the piano work (though I don't love the performance in this video--too much bombast, not intimate enough).  In fact, it was through performing this in high school that I then did some research on it and discovered that it was a part of a larger work, and that was when I heard bits and pieces of the Concord Sonata for the first time.  Before that, I knew Ives only for "Variations on America," "Country Band March," and a couple more of his fun pieces, so this was my first exposure to the more mature side that characterizes most of his compositions.  (Fun fact: that was the only time I have ever performed on celeste, so I actually played a keyboard instrument in the band transcription of a work for keyboard instrument.)

I discuss this because there is an orchestration of the entire sonata by Henry Brant (for orchestra).  Having heard a highly effective expansion of one movement to a larger ensemble, I would love to hear the entire sonata played by a large ensemble, especially if it is orchestrated as well as Kyle Gann writes (PostClassic, 9/12/07).  This seems to me to be a highly worthwhile endeavor.