Page 256 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained
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STAND UP AND TAKE
YOUR DISSONANCE
LIKE A MAN
SYMPHONY NO. 4 (1916), CHARLES EDWARD IVES
any of the manuscripts of music making in his hometown of
IN CONTEXT the American composer Danbury, Connecticut—especially
M Charles Ives consist of a the local band and its rivals from
FOCUS patchwork of cutouts pasted over nearby towns, which, on national
Collage
new ideas. Ives often raided his holidays, would assemble within
BEFORE own compositions for inspiration, earshot of each other. Ives not only
1787 Wolfgang Amadeus reusing parts of them or sticking enjoyed the cacophony of different
Mozart simultaneously them into others. As a result, many tunes being played simultaneously
employs four separate of his compositions sound like but later set out to reproduce in his
orchestras in different time collage—different musical own works exactly what he heard,
signatures for Don Giovanni. fragments layered on top of each as in his Holidays symphony.
other. Many of these were scraps of
1912 Igor Stravinsky “pastes” music that he heard in his youth— Literary influences
a chord of a dominant seventh hymns of the Pilgrim Fathers, Ives lived a mere 150 miles (240 km)
on E-flat over a chord of F-flat gospel tunes, and brass band music. from Concord, Massachusetts—the
major in Le Sacre du printemps Ives loved to listen to the amateur epicenter of the Transcendentalist
and causes audience outrage. literary movement that included
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel
AFTER Hawthorne, Louisa M. Alcott,
1928 Henry Cowell composes and Henry David Thoreau. Their
his Concerto for Piano and works promoted the belief that true
Orchestra, whose three knowledge could not be attained by
movements are titled Why tonality as such should studying religion or academia but
“Polyharmony,” “Tone Cluster,” be thrown out for good I can’t rather came from reflection and
and “Counter Rhythm.” see. Why it should always contemplation of the self. Inspired
be present I can’t see. It by their ideas, Ives published his
1967–1969 Luciano Berio depends, it seems to me … Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord,”
composes his Sinfonia, the on what one is trying to do. in 1919, comprising movements
third movement of which is a Charles Ives named for each of the key writers.
collage of musical quotations. In the early 1920s—during
which time Ives worked alongside
fellow experimental composers
Henry Cowell and Carl Ruggles to
spearhead progressive American
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