Charles Ives Symphony No. 4, BBC Symphony Orchestra/David Robertson, cond./Ralph van Raat, piano

www.ralphvanraa... Broadcast of the BBC Proms, 2007. Ralph van Raat plays the piano part of Ives' Symphony No.4 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson in the Royal Albert Hall, London.

[@enriquesanchez2001]

Stravinsky: “This fascinating composer was exploring the 1960s during the heyday of Strauss and Debussy. Polytonality; atonality; tone clusters; perspectivistic effects; chance; statistical composition; permutation; add-a-part, practical-joke, and improvisatory music: these were Ives’ discoveries a half-century ago as he quietly set about devouring the contemporary cake before the rest of us even found a seat at the same table.”

[@Piflaser]

Not the only one: Varese, Villa-Lobos, Hauer, Antheil ...

[@TheMikeOrganist]

@@Piflaser Even Max Reger... ;)

[@Piflaser]

@Tim Johnson I know not so much music by Heitor Villa Lobos. Absolutley fascinating for me are his guitar solo works, his Bachianas Brasilieras (a collection a little bit like Hindemth's Kammermusik), his Choros and a few concertos and last not least String Quartets. This are all the works I know and there is nothing not worth to hear. It is a little bit like Ginastera and Milhaud in style but not in invention.

[@DaveFrank]

BRAVO IVES!

[@yssimon9058]

@Tim Johnson Let me recommend: 12 Guitar etudes and Bachianas Brasileiras

[@guscairns1]

He was 100 years before his time, I think. He understood the information overload, loss of certainly, ideologies and people shoving for space, the sheer noise of his coming century. He'd have loved sampling and mixing. Like many, I started by thinking Ives was just a din: it was the entry of the quarter-tone strings at 4:23 in this symphony that changed my mind, an astonishing effect, like alien music from a parallel universe has just drifted in. I also love the tsunami-like accelerando that starts at 5:55 and the mad clarinets at 8:34. And the last movement is just beyond analysis....

[@johnappleseed8369]

I completely agree!

[@RISK9000]

Keith Jarrett once said: "We live in Ives' era".

[@blakedegraw7958]

well put, mate

[@danielshumway7046]

Agree almost completely...but not alien. Earthly in every sense, speaking clearly to humanity, as was always the case with Ives, digging deep into our souls to find and address our confusion while expressing life in its truest form.

[@jeffwads]

Another reason to believe him when he came down those stairs and told his wife, "Nothing sounds right...". By the way, Havergal Brian was writing music like you describe in the 20's.

[@cypher1333]

The best of all American-written symphonies. For this alone, Charles Ives shall live forever!

[@perry1559]

There’s the other three symphonies, string quartets, violin sonatas, two major piano sonatas, the second of which is already considered a great classic. There’s no question Ives was a truly great composer.

[@harryhagan5937]

For sure the greatest American composer, by far. And thanks for those recs! I'll look them up. I know the symphonies and a few other works, but did not know about the sonatas.@@perry1559

[@schwarzkavalier]

Aaron Copland!! John Cage!!

[@ibish9513]

First time hearing any of his work, in fact, first time hearing Ives' name. All I can say is that it is wonderful, and as someone whose favourite works include Rite of Spring and the Miraculous Mandarin, I feel like Charles Ives Symphony No. 4 will also become one of my favourites.

[@muslit]

i love how this symphony 'dissolves' at the end - one of the most beautiful endings in classical music

[@egapnala65]

If people have problems with this just imagine you are in a fairground. Lots of music playing from different rides, the noise of the crowd etc. If you get that then you will see what Ives was conveying. Snapshots of reality. Crowd scenes, amateur brass bands giving it their best shot etc. He was a landscape artist.

[@raymondwilcox1303]

Excellent analogy, it served to adjust my listening immediately. Thank you!

[@TeatroAcustico]

I like that way of describing the sensations and defining Ives as a landscape artist. I'll quote you on that one. It is a great synthesis. Makes me think of James Turrell and all he has done with light and now with Roden crater.

[@TeatroAcustico]

@@raymondwilcox1303 yes Alan Page's comments caught my eye too. Snapshots of reality is a good description.

[@darrylschultz9311]

That's great! Now it seems exactly like the chaotic sounds of a noisy fairground-pure genius! (Did you know,there are some idiots that go to the fair just for all the fun stuff,rather than to hear the racket the fun stuff makes! I know-preposterous isn't it!??).

[@andrewwilliams9599]

@Russ Wollman Is that grounds for divorce? ;)

[@lethinafacex2031]

Prelude 0:00 Comedy 3:58 Fugue 16:20 Finale 25:20 The greatest music that I know of!

[@Chesterton7]

Same.

[@ethanhill9460]

This symphony is brilliant, complicated and simple in almost equal measure.

[@yumapoint]

I'm sitting here absolutely stunned. I'd just finished listening to Leonard Slatkin's terrific version of the Fourth with the Detroit Symphony, and thought I'd try this one, and I find it just as good--but it has the advantage of the rich Albert Hall acoustics. This and the Slatkin I think are the best, most insightful, most moving performances of the Fourth I've ever heard. The best, in fact, since the splendid Stokowski original performance. Hearing this and the Slatkin reminded me of the day over thirty years ago that I happened to hear on the radio Michael Tilson Thomas's live performance of the Ives Holidays Symphony with Chicago and thought, "My god, they're playing it like Mozart." At that moment I felt Ives performance had come of age, and I feel the same about this and Slatkin's versions of the Fourth. That Tilson Thomas performance of Holidays gave me the idea of writing a biography of Ives. I hope this kind of performance will inspire future Ivesians. I think the Fourth is one of the towering artworks of the twentieth century, but with a grander ambition than most. The main theme of the Fourth is the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee." It's there from the first page and finally emerges to the surface in the mystical chorus of the end. That's where Ives wanted to take us, whether, as he put it, we are "Christian, Jew, Pagan, or Angel!" The Fourth Symphony is a work of universal religion. All its teeming voices are finding their own way up the mountain, to view the stars. --Jan Swafford

[@walexwetchina487]

i enjoyed your biography. I also feel this is one of if not the best recording of the 4th. Sadly I cant find it for sale any where

[@anuteamsterium]

I too wish to salute you for your fine work on Ives. Your biography of Brahms was similarly outstanding. It's no easy thing to write about music, to evoke something so subjective and non verbal in mere words. It's even harder to do it in a way that is intelligible to non-musicians. Ives may yet receive the credit he is due. Your book will no doubt help to achieve that end.

[@skolrelaterat4113]

I agree. This is wonderful. I would like to thank you for your interesting book about Ives. I'm not sure you are interested but perhaps you will understand my excitement. It's not often you get an opportunity to hear Ives live when you live in a small town in Sweden, but tomorrow I will travel to Gothenburg to hear the symphonic orchestra of Gothenburg perform Three Places In New England. Most people in my surroundings probably find it mad to travel for four hours (single journey) to listen to just under twenty minutes of music by a composer they have never heard of. I myself have looked forward to this for months. It will be the first time I hear Ives live. About twenty years ago I heard Ives for the first time. It was the last movement of Orchestral Set No 2 that was played on the radio. I was totally absorbed and have loved his music ever since.

[@yumapoint]

@@skolrelaterat4113 Belated thanks. Always delighted to hear about a fervent Ives fan in Europe.

[@blakedegraw7958]

@@yumapoint I too would like to jump on the thanks-for-the-biography bandwagon. I started it a few days ago and can't put it down. I already somewhat knew how fascinating Charles was, but I had no idea about George. What a character! Learning about his experiments, his relationship with his son, and his early death has completely recontextualized Charles' music for me. I can hardly listen without getting choked up.

[@anuteamsterium]

A genius. And a prophet. The listener can choose to hear either the exuberant chaos of the colossal war Ives' father endured, or a wistful dream image, a premonition of the greatness this country would one day outlive. I'm not sure I've ever heard it more perfectly realized, especially the final movement. When the Great Descent begins (at 29:50) with the most terrible sort of inevitability, it's as though a fog lifts, and there stands America. In all its grandeur and contradiction, its hope and sorrow. Wonderful that this music was presented to a British audience. Was there ever a more sublimely American music?

[@ethanhill9331]

Your comment is equal to the performance.

[@futuropasado]

I think it's the most important american composition ever, truly genius, chaotic and beautiful.

[@anuteamsterium]

How kind of you.

[@lionelbax5316]

No. I think it is even as great as the greatest works.

[@TeatroAcustico]

"All its grandeur and contradiction, its hope and sorrow", is a great synopsis. I know when I heard it live there was a sense of fog lifting and sunshine entering a space. Rarely have I burst into tears in a live concert.

[@anothertime1282]

Incredible. He captures life. All the flux, confusion and joy.

[@MrSebastianViola]

Wow. Indeed, a fabulous performance of the piece. Mr van Raat is first rate. David Robertson and the orchestra really knock Ives out of the park...... The sonorities - so difficult to get consistently supple - are super energized, yet transparent. Remarkable acoustics. Nicely filmed, too. I'm really knocked sideways by this..... Gorgeous......

[@GoldStandardIsALie]

and the slow, limping, plodding piano throughout is icing on the cake. i couldn't stop laughing throughout this piece. i'm instantly in love with this Charles Ives person.

[@anuteamsterium]

I've often thought sometimes laughter is the highest form of praise.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Violin sonàtas.

[@jppitman1]

I witnessed a National Symphony Orchestra performance under Leonard Slatkin and especially during the Comedy movement (#2) I, too, burst out laughing during its performance--as did others around me. America is a beautiful country from Acadia National Park to The Big Sur....but, believe you me, it is indeed one cacophonous study in contrasts from "sea to shining sea" and this performance from our English brethren encapsulated them well. (Hey, let`s hear it for the cornet player! He couldn`t be heard, but he was there!)

[@andrewwilliams9599]

@@jppitman1 I was there!

[@Chesterton7]

Omigod he's hilarious and a second later moves you to tears.

[@philhomes233]

A totally stunning symphony.

[@TeatroAcustico]

Agree!!

[@enriquesanchez2001]

WOW - Every inch of the 20th century in 34 minutes

[@markpaterson2053]

Wow, what an ACE comment; sums up the guy perfectly. I hate people who dismiss him, I mean, I'm not a George Gershwin fan but I'd never dismiss him, and anyone who says that Ives is just noise is, in my not-so-humble opinion, a total moron incapable of seeing (or hearing) something for what it actually is..

[@dave21286]

One of the truly underrated composers. I wish that Ives will same get his just due. Sublime and magnificent performance.

[@korinnedutton8040]

To be honest, I wouldn’t say that he never got his just due. It may have taken a while but by the end of his life the world was starting to understand (as much as anybody other than Charles Ives himself could) his amazing music. And now he’s become an American legend. The only part of fame he never got was the money, but he was a very successful New York business man, so I’m sure he had he fair share of that, and if not then I don’t think he would have cared anyways. He once said musics was his love and life but as long as he had his wife and daughter’s support he was perfectly happy. He never cared about the fame, to him music was just a way to express himself, not a way to attract attention.

[@johnsluggett1822]

He won a Pulitzer Prize. Fame may not have been his goal, but he worked very hard to have his "personal expression" heard. He tirelessly sent his compositions around to leading figures in music.

[@harryhagan5937]

Exactly so.@@korinnedutton8040

[@yowzephyr]

0:00 is a good place to start.

[@an8ropos2]

The ending of the second movement and the one of the 2nd symphony are unbelievably artistic

[@philliplipple1799]

Ives doesn't seem so radical these days. In fact many of his works are quite entertaining. All the symphonies are worth a listen.

[@tomestubbs]

This is a very good performance of Ives Symphony #4. I have heard 5 performances of this and this version is one of the best.

[@Chesterton7]

Agree. This is a great one. And you can clearly hear a lot of the hidden gem parts.

[@TeatroAcustico]

You are a lucky man Tom Stubbs to have heard five times this head spinning and moving work. I'm envious.

[@docbailey3265]

Has anyone ever uttered, whilst playing the second movement, “Oops, I missed that note. I need a re-do”?

[@tomestubbs]

@@docbailey3265 Ives would have gotten a kick out of the mistakes, he like chaos.

[@tomestubbs]

@@TeatroAcustico Serebrer's version is as good as Stokowski's and they differ quite a bit, especially with the use of two piano's tune a quarter tone apart.

[@MrMusiquemonamour]

Goosebumps and tears as I listen to the final moments of the fourth movt. - and then the choir stands....... Bought the record of the first performance as an 18 yr old, by chance. part of my life ever since. Tho' I understood very little of it back then, Ithe bond was immediate.

[@Chesterton7]

Same.

[@claudiasiefer8495]

You "understood" when you were 18 y/o else you'd not have bonded with it ! xx

[@conw_y]

That ending for me is like Ives’ “Ode to America”.

[@vaughanosgan2623]

Utterly monumental work......What else is there to say???

[@unmusica]

Ahhhh! At last, a contemporary performance of this unique and wondrous Symphony! I have been watching Leopold Stokowski's 1965 performance for years and loved it; this is a worthy companion which I will enjoy many, many times. I have played Mr. Ives' childhood piano (tuned down a 5th from concert pitch, as if that should have surprised me), taken what I guess you'd call the "Ives Tour" of Danbury, Connecticut, which ends up at his gravesite, and have played a few excerpts from the "Concord" Sonata, including the fun little part from "Hawthorne" that appears in the 2nd movement here. I own a copy of the orchestral score (quite expensive for a paperback, $85.00 back in 2004) and can, at best, imagine having the kind of focus required to participate successfully in the realization of Music such as this. I send my hearfelt congratulations on a job well done, and my equally sincere thanks for posting it.

[@Chesterton7]

Great post, Unmusica!~

[@henrycerro9151]

The Fugue always brings a tear to my eye. It's so beautiful.

[@Chesterton7]

Same. It's the unexpected lovely juxtaposition.

[@guscairns1]

@@Chesterton7 Yes, it kind of clears the ears between the other 2 movements. And the lovely clarinet at 24:17

[@jrk3150]

Utterly remarkable!

[@jennifyrgilmore2441]

Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony is a work of cosmic transcendence. It is polytonal, polytemporal and polychromatic. It is 4 dimensional music in a 3 dimensional world. It takes past, present and future and casts them before the listener like precious stones. It is a celebration of life for all, be you “Christian, Jew, Pagan or Angel!” Or Sikh, Jainist, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Eckist, or any of the legions of religions that humans embrace. Gustav Mahler said, “A symphony must be a world.” Ives’ Fourth is a world, a nation, set in space-time and yet not of it. It is a map superimposed upon a map superimposed on yet another map, each layer revealing new strata of America’s history and its legacy. It is foursquare against chaos. It will be as relevant when we go to the stars as it is now. It is music for citizens of the universe. It is our birthright.

[@TeatroAcustico]

Thanks Jennifyr for the Mahler quote. It is fantastic. Plus I like what you say that the 4th is "set in space-time and yet not of it." I know exactly what you mean. I heard it live in Buenos Aires on the 28th October 2012 played by the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires as part of Teatro Colón's cycle of contemporary music, "Ciclo de Conciertos de Musica Contemporánea.” It was directed by Alejo Perez with second conductor, Annunziata Tomaro. I was moved to tears especially by the impact of music coming from the sides, behind, and in all directions. It made it so dream like.

[@neoanderson367]

It’s noise.

[@wormswithteeth]

@@neoanderson367 And what noise it is!

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Glorious "noise!"

[@johnsavva4320]

Thanks for the multicultural claptrap. I'm sure Ives the accountant only spoke American.

[@jesskady1585]

I love how happy the lady is to be playing this at 21:30 :)

[@Chesterton7]

Omigod I didn't see that, Jess. you just made my day.

[@guscairns1]

@@Chesterton7 And double bass man at 32:35.

[@brucefrier333]

I saw its premier in 1965, Leopold Stokowski conducting, with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. They had two sub-conductors. What a revelation!

[@vanhowell3011]

+Bruce Frier - I missed that one (tho' I bought and enjoyed the resulting record shortly after). But sometime in the mid-1980s(?) I heard at Carnegie Hall José Serebrier conduct (the ASO again) a stupendous fourth, one of the two or three greatest concerts I in my experience, infinitely better than any recording. The sounds did some very large and strange things in the air of the hall (can't find better words to describe it).

[@brucefrier333]

+Van Howell : I'd have to say that the premier was also much more magical than the subsequent record, perhaps because the modulations were so much richer.

[@vanhowell3011]

+Bruce Frier I heard it live again around 2004 at the Proms in Royal Albert Hall... There seemed to be nothing at all wrong with the performance (by Birmingham SO) but it was dead as a doornail to my ears. Perhaps the hall's acoustics are crucial; I'd heard it in NY before they spiffed up Carnegie Hall and snuffed out its magic. I just noticed the following comment (off coincidence); maybe the hall was fine and I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.

[@vanhowell3011]

+Van Howell (typo above - off was supposed to be odd)

[@FunnyBecauseItsTrue]

...two conductors are evident here, as well...

[@lolimbadatfifa]

What a treat just to see and hear in this in performance! One of the most extraordinary works of the twentieth century and the greatest American symphony. Thank you so much for the video.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Charles Ives is to music what James Joyce is to literature.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Not Joyce...Flan O'Brian! It's got Dalkey Archive all over it.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Not familiar with Flann O'Brien's work except for The Third Policeman which I read years ago. Based on my memories of it, I agree with your assessment.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

@@andrewwilliams9599 Third Policeman is brilliant. As all his work seems to be.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Another commentator made the case for John Dos Passos. I think that is an apt comparison as well.

[@guscairns1]

Good comparison. All human life is there in Joyce too.

[@jacquesbekaert469]

One of the greatest symphony of all time. Thank for posting it

[@ShoyuTao]

Is this the great American Symphony? I don't know of a better one.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

No. You are right. There is no better one.

[@ethanhill9460]

This is the GREAT AMERICAN symphony.

[@calebhu6383]

Barber has some good ones but Ives' 4th towers above, not as a perfect composition but as a miraculous one.

[@Chesterton7]

It sure is for me. Really my favorite of all.

[@anuteamsterium]

Copland's 3rd rests right next to this Ives masterpiece in my heart. But Copland expressed himself in musical terms much more universal in their appeal.

[@JamesTG8888]

Great to see David in action. We miss him here in St. Louis, where he transformed our SLSO program over the 13 years he led it.

[@markbrandus]

Incredibly powerful composition reaching ranges of emotions uncommon to music's effects. Thank you David Robertson full interpreting this.

[@drewyknot]

From 24:10 until the end of the Fugue is some of the best music ever written. I know it. It isn't recorded perfectly in that hall, but still is wonderful.

[@olebirgerpedersen]

In the slow movement he quotes Brahms and all fits in. An extraordently composer. I remember back in the early 60th we had a conducter, wich name I unfortunately forgot, he introduced us to this fabuolous music. I am still gratefull.

[@gswilmore6755]

It closes with - "Nearer My God To Thee" - underneath the chocophony. Huanting.

[@TeatroAcustico]

Haunting it the right word. I think there is live before and life after Ives' Four.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Holy Wow!

[@TeatroAcustico]

Exactly what I thought.

[@Chesterton7]

I know, right?

[@conw_y]

29:30 I absolutely love how Ives transitions to the grand restatement of the main theme. It’s like the music is asking a question - only in this work, the question is answered!

[@biketowork1]

This is truly a great performance of a masterpiece! Would have loved to have been there, but this is the next best thing. Wonderful!

[@patrickcrosby3824]

Fantastic performance of what may well be the most difficult work to perform in the entire genre. Stokowski in his first performance and subsequent recording spent weeks, months, even years on it. As to the work being experimental I don't understand this at all. To me, it's pure mastery of the symphonic form, unconventional, formally, as it may be. But the true greatness of the work lies, far beyond and attempts at formal analysis in its capturing of what is sometimes called the American Spirit.

[@jongilchrist7229]

The greatest American composer. That second movement always chokes me up. I'm sure he was an influence on Copland.

[@TeatroAcustico]

Have you heard it live? I burst into tears when I heard it for the first time in a live concert. The sense of being coated and blanketed in music is so strong and intense.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Copland had a great respect for Charles Ives. No influence though.

[@Chesterton7]

Same.

[@voiceover2191]

Try and listen to Ives' Robert Browning Overture, it's like one long 4th symphony second movement. It's rarely performed but I have an old radio live recording from Berlin Philharmonic with Chailly conducting and at the end is so great: half the audience gives an ovation and shouting and the other half is booing. Definite proof you really wrote something interesting. I love the piece.

[@paulamrod537]

Can you imagine he sold insurance? How unsexy. Therefore he wrote into the wee hours after work. What a great composer.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

He put his money where his music was.

[@markbrooks7157]

He never sold insurance. He was a partner in his own company and as such was the ideas man.

[@Chesterton7]

Yes! The "ether organ/theremin" part used a real theremin! Bless David Robertson!

[@cockhammer09]

This is a very good performance of a quite difficult work. I extend my regards to the orchestra and Mastro Robertson. I listen and try to inform myself more about Ives as a person....

[@harryhagan5937]

Jan Swafford's bio of Ives is excellent. Great read.

[@gwydionrhys7672]

The Third Symphonies of both Roy Harris and Aaron Copland are among the greatest American symphonies (in my humble opinion), but this symphony is something else.

[@MrEthanJason]

This is a great rendering of the work. This work is musical artistry at its apex.

[@kuang-licheng402]

stunning

[@andrewpetersen5272]

I like your attitude.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

You are a great and sensitive listener Cheng.

[@cpa2788]

Oh happy days! I waited on a dead torrent for more than a year, just for a low bit-rate audio of this, and it never completed yet. Here's the full broadcast, both audio and video! Today is a Very Good Day. Thank you so much

[@mallorybesom1717]

Nicely done ! Brings a neglected masterpiece to life.

[@Chesterton7]

Exactly.

[@zedwhyex]

Gosh, I just love this so much. I tend to listen to it every quarter just to hear new elements that manifest. It's like a favourite pie in some respects; you could quite happily eat it over and over again, but you'd rather limit yourself just so you can enjoy it as much each time 🙂

[@lindametelka5172]

ah, that chorale fugue---sublime. Seems like it opens up vast spaces and distances, and the past...

[@aaronrabushka2180]

The one time I heard it live, student performers in Bloomington, IN, I was struck by the way that the sound masses are built out of components each of which is quite simple in itself.

[@djrom66]

Real music ❤️

[@wmlfan9]

The slow movement from 16:20 to 25:20 is one of the great symphonic movements. The orchestra just SINGS that beautiful music.

[@martig1000]

Cholera. To jest genialne.

[@jackwilmoresongs]

There is lots of popular band and Americana music in a cacophany. Latter I hear a litany of fragments of Christian hymns. The symphony ends in a slightly eschew celestial rendition of "Nearer My God to Thee". I like this symphony.

[@Anvanho]

Wow! Great!! Love this work!

[@johnatwell2753]

Fabulous to watch! Like most Ives fans, I started off with the Stokowski recording. Later I preferred the Seiji Ozawa recording, and the Tilson Thomas recording after that. This concert is special to me because of way Robertson finishes the 2nd movement. The abrupt end was (and still is) the way Ives wrote it. But I gather Stokowski didn't like it, because he wrote in a fermata... a much more normal way of ending a movement.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

I noticed that,too. I prefer the abrupt ending--reminiscient of the dissonant chord that ends Ives's Second Symphony.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

The only recording I've never liked at all was one issued by an Italian orchestra which I shall not name. They play it so slowly that what is a 32-minute symphony gets s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to 1 hour. Underehearsed, and the conductor and orchestra clearly weren't up the task. I really hope that someone will issue Slatkin's live recording with the NSO in the 2000s as well as Robertson's. Deutsche Grammaphon, are you listening?

[@simonkawasaki4229]

The second movement is truly a testament of orchestral writing. How the gruesome train is depicted through music, it’s revelry and evil through so many combined hymns and songs... so ineffable and shocking.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Wonder if Villa Lobos as familiar with Ives?

[@windstorm1000]

Our Charles Ives knew he couldn't make a living as a composer--even as a genius composer--so he supported his family as a great insurance executive. Its a tragedy really--how much more masterpieces could he have created before being forced to sell premiums?? But let us be greatful that another great American composer--Leonard Berstein--helped the myopic American musical public/critics make up for their terrible neglect of the great man. The performance of this symphony brought joy to ive's last years. A prophet is hardly ever appreciated in his own time!!!

[@windstorm1000]

may I also say, its nice to see the artistic current, for once, going other way--British band playing our American music--American symphonies need to program more American music--not just because its AMerican but because its GOOD MUSIC--most of it anyway.

[@dave21286]

Interesting parallel to Wallace Stevens. Both spent a good part of their lives in Connecticut, were Ivy League educated and had very successful careers in the insurance industry. Stevens, of course, pursued a different artistic endeavor (poetry), but was equally compelling in his craft.

[@elegantfowl1]

I'm pretty sure that this symphony wasn't performed until some years after Ives died.

[@robertberger4203]

Ives actually became very wealthy as one of America's leading insurance executives . He pretty much founded the insurance industry as we know it today . There's a funny ironic story about a meeting of American insurance executives, and one of them supposedly said "Did you know that the great Charles Ives, the founder of American insurance, was also a composer ?"

[@Calcprof]

I first heard Ives when Berstein did the last movement of Ives 2 on Young People's Concert. That was the start of my love of Ives's music.

[@andrewmohr3489]

I first heard this in 1980 when I was just a kid and I still think it's one of the most punk-rock things in modern music. This is an incredible performance.

[@TeatroAcustico]

First time I heard it was live in Buenos Aires on the 28th October 2012 played by the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires as part of Teatro Colón's cycle of contemporary music, "Ciclo de Conciertos de Musica Contemporánea.” It was directed by Alejo Perez with second conductor, Annunziata Tomaro. It blew my mind when the two conductors began, Perez with his back to the stage and Tomaro facing front to conduct the musicians on the balconies. Wow. Time and space melted.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Its spirit is that of punk: iconoclastic, deviations from the norm, and nothing like the nice, polite classical music that the 'symphony ladies' who held the purse strings preferred.

[@ethanhill9331]

Despite the audible "hack" early in the video repeated listenings are rewarding for admirers or detractors of the composer or the composition. Might be greatest piece of 20th century music regardless of genre.

[@futuropasado]

Along with Mahlers 9th it is for me probably.

[@hillcresthiker]

@@futuropasado Took the words out of my mouth

[@marshallartz395]

@@futuropasado: Mahler’s 9th is the greatest symphony ever written, but I love the Ives 4th. This performance lacks a lot of the punch and detail that I remember from the great Stokowski recording. Still, there are many lovely moments. Here’s a link to the Columbia Masterworks recording with Stokowski from 1965. It still sounds great: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iIW7i4aHop53o5o 😎🎹

[@anvihoang]

Still is the greatest composer of the USA - Ives was way ahead of his time. This work voices such a unique Americanness.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Rather hard to apply those labels to nationality don't you think?

[@CristianQuieto]

And, added bonus if the church you grew up in had an awesome choir. That first choir intervention brought me to tears.

[@TeatroAcustico]

I heard it live in Buenos Aires on the 28th October 2012 played by the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires as part of Teatro Colón's cycle of contemporary music, "Ciclo de Conciertos de Musica Contemporánea.” It was directed by Alejo Perez with second conductor, Annunziata Tomaro. I don't think I've ever burst into tears in a concert before. It was like there were too many emotions to contain and the waters overflowed.

[@lolllololllo]

This music is impossible, here's why 00:00 - stunning beginning, it gets no better than this. 01:22 - tonality comes in the form of a beautiful choral piece. 04:24 - how is this texture of layers of music even imaginable? 13:55 - and this beautiful ensemble? Why can I hear Rhapsody in Blue? 16:22 - after all the polytonality, polyrhythms, polytemporality and polycrhomatism, this beautiful fugue stands out in an indescribable manner. 25:24 - Fazıl Say's Universe Symphony, almost one century before? Also throughout the piece you can clearly hear the Concord Sonata in the background. And that enormous crescendo? Unreal. 31:46 - there it is, the so-called "ether organ". Never heard that so low-pitched, what a beautiful sensation it is. My God, and that chorus in the end? Everything vanishes, and it's the drums that have that duty.

[@depauleable]

Damn! That Finale!

[@cpa2788]

Thank you so much for the upload. The Fourth is wonderful.

[@debbiewilson9712]

If you didn't grow up on gospel music, I'm not sure you could enjoy Ives quite so much. The snippets show up everywhere. The tunes he references are really outstanding pieces of music in their own right. "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," "Holy, Holy, Holy," and the "Coronation" tune to "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." All majestic type tunes.

[@ethanhill9331]

Good point. Ives played organ at two or three churches before his insurance agency absorbed his time.

[@ethanhill9738]

debbie wilson: You make a sublime point. Ives was organist for a New Haven church to help meet his Yale tuition. He quotes religiously from hymnal. And I suggest parts of the agnostic or pagan critical community will not champion this work, or Ives, because gospel music is featured.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

My partner Jennifyr grew up in the Baptist Church and was the pianist and organist at her father's church. She loves the 3rd movement.

[@carl44acq]

Your suggestion is absurd. I am an atheist and Ives' music stirs me in ways that are exquisite. A hymn is just a string of notes, after all. @@ethanhill9738

[@cockhammer09]

Kudos to the beeb for embarking on this! It is a great surprise for me, an Ives fan!

[@wormswithteeth]

The amount of musicians required for this is absurd. AND THEN A FUCKING THEREMIN. Love it.

[@voiceover2191]

Hope you can ever see a performance of Ives' Universe Symphony (requiring several orchestras, choirs and 5 conductors). Ives never finished it, but it was reconstructed from fragments and notes and I attended the premiere in Warsaw, Poland. It was incredible.

[@wormswithteeth]

@@voiceover2191 I hope to one day!

[@jimp4170]

My beloved father was an insurance man whose eldest (me) probably wasn't quite what he was expecting but who rolled with it better than any father could have. When I was a teenager, I would often take a train into the city to escape the dreary, oppressive suburban town we lived in. I'd head for the museums and chi-chi department stores, and always stopped at the 2 music stores where I'd explore for hours. I'd meet dad at his office and he'd take me out to dinner before driving us home. He always wanted to know what I'd done all day, and asked about the music I had bought (even though he really had no feel for any type of elevated artistic expression) and one day I told him about a string quartet that looked interesting to me which was written by a composer I'd never heard of named Charles Ives. He told me that there was a very influential insurance man with the same name who had written a treatise on estate planning that is still required study. It was a while before I found out it was the same person. Dad and I didn't have a lot in common but we loved each other all the same. Ives seemed to be the intersection of our interests and my love of Ives's music has become conflated with my love of my father. I hear the music when I walk around our small Midwesterners town. I think of my father when I hear or perform Ives's music. Whenever I go into the Ives studio that is now installed at the American Academy of Arts and Letters I find it difficult to master my emotions, especially when I see the cornet that belonged to Ives's father, who seemed to be equally loved by his son.

[@beeble2003]

Thanks for posting! I remember hearing this for the first time at the Proms a few years before your performance. The brass entry at 14:57 makes me laugh out loud every time I hear it, including that first time. Thankfully, the piece is so loud at that point that nobody could hear me!

[@andrewwilliams9599]

"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying."--Rilke

[@nedhopkins897]

It does not detract from Ives's achievement to note that, years after their composition, he amended this symphony and several other works to make them appear more visionary, to make it seem indeed that "[h]e was 100 years before his time."

[@yumapoint]

That's entirely not true. A theory spread by a dishonest musicologist. Ives revised his stuff later, but it was radical from its inception. Sometimes later he tamed things down from the original--such as the Concord Sonata and some of the songs. I know what I'm talking about: I wrote the damn book.

[@belkismartin7019]

Maravilloso!!!! feliz viernes.🌿

[@stueystuey1962]

I think i like it. Has been a long time since an Ives work captured me. And though i am not totally convinced yet i may keep it in the rotation.

[@hillcresthiker]

I find it amusing that for such a deep, heavy work, there is a tremendous amount of smiling by the performers- especially that pretty blonde in the final chorus at 33 minutes!

[@stueystuey1962]

This caught me by surprise. I was streaming via autoplay having selected Carter's 1961 Double Concerto to start. Now I have listened to a good deal of Ives but there is no one work of his that I listen to repeatedly in the past few years. I have even cast shade on Ives wrt the dates of composition of his works given that he took advantage of the awkward fact of his pieces not being performed. And thereby reworked his compositions but didnt change the date of composition or note that he made revisions. All that said, this is a bit of a masterpiece.

[@RPKraul]

Charles Ives' music was such demented genius. This is some of the darkest music I've ever heard. Metal bands, rather than listening to other metal bands, should listen to Charles Ives.

[@TeatroAcustico]

Go hear it live and it will blow your mind R.P.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

@@TeatroAcustico I did in the early 2000s when the National Symphony Orchestra performed it with Leonard Slatkin conducting. I was a bit put off by Slatkin repeatedly using the word 'weird' in his spoken introduction to the performance, but I understand now that was verbal shorthand for folks less familiar with Ives' work.The performance was...spectacular.

[@Chesterton7]

@@TeatroAcustico You're so right.

[@cockhammer09]

Ives, Mahler, and Schubert. Now there could be a concert program that overwhelms the soul. A long night, but soooo beautiful.... Are you watching, Masetro Morlot? Or Maestro Dudamel? Please consider this....

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Dudamel recorded the Ives Complete Symphonies last yearwith the LA Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammaphon. I was disappointeed that the Holidays and Universe Symphony weren't included, but his interpretation of the Fourth is stellar.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

Gustavo Dudamel has said many times that his favorite composers are Gustav Mahler, Antonin Dvorak and Charles Ives.

[@docbailey3265]

Could this be the best American work ever composed? One clear vote for maybe.

[@samvanderzee8188]

I like the 4 symphonies of Ives.Sam van der Zee

[@juspasenthru]

And I've always loved 29:55. It sounds apocalyptic to me.

[@andrewnguyen1220]

29:55

[@ethanhill9460]

BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA does justice to the immensity of the work. The symphony is beautiful, complex and a complete example of the composer's genius and ingenuity. IVES is the seminal American composer. A Renaissance man as a collegiate undergraduate -- ran track well but sparingly at YALE -- and popular among his peers he had issues with the undergraduate music professors. Talk about missing the boat. Composed music his entire life. Some prefer European composers a few centuries before IVES. I prefer IVES.

[@WestSeaSpirit]

This is bare-breaking, extreme, dark! I feel like I am on constant edge, living through murder! The scores and utter darkness is MAGNIFICENT!

[@lionelbax5316]

dark?

[@gustavoflorio5383]

Its the opposite of dark! Perhaps this was your first hearing of a non-tonal music.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

It's anything but dark. Get through your pretentions.

[@MrMinxie]

Recently discovering Ives, his music is the soundtrack to the current covid curse and the madness of our masked days. Hearing him gives me hope amid the collapse of all we love.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I am so glad that Robertson decided to include the "ether organ" (aka theremin) part in the final movement. It blends beautifully with the orchestra, and reminds us that Ives was one of the main financial backers of Leon Theremin. He also supported Henry Cowell's construction of the Rhythmicon, but it never really worked. Had it been workable, it would have the first electro-mechanical drum machine.

[@Lebeding]

Well, this instrument is called: Theremin or: Thereminvox, Thereminovox, Termenvox, ursprünglich Aetherophone. It was created by the Russian Lew Termen. More infos you may find on wikipedia.

[@violadude0987]

What???? Those are the most beautiful parts!

[@GoldStandardIsALie]

y'all are missing the point: this song is hilarious. Listen to 29:30 onward. it's clearly meant to be a humorous commentary on music. You can clearly hear the slow, sweeping, pompous build-up-to-the-end that is so common in old classical pieces. Except in this portion 3 different pieces are trying to drown each other out. Listen at 32:20 onward - the accompaniment of the choir sounds absolutely demented in contrast with the angelic aaahs. It's almost like classical dada. It's excellent.

[@TeatroAcustico]

I think you are right GoldStandard - there is much wit and intelligence here. Ives has an ability to be ironic, witty, wise and human which is why we are all captivated by this work.

[@brianzayman3395]

Yes! And as an example of comedy from a great composer, check out Mozart's D minor fantasy for piano. I insist that he is making fun of Italian opera conventions.

[@michaelspeir6086]

That blonde-haired woman, third from the left, second row back. I'm going on 68 years old, and I swear that woman has been in every chorus I've ever seen. Oh, and yeah, Ives was a genius.

[@mikechad27]

14:56 i love that the brass just has a march of their own, completely disconnected from the rest 😂

[@NOSEhow2LIV]

What a Glorious Noise! I'll never forget my first hearing of it in this very hall,(same orchestra!) in my teens in the 1960's.Ives' 4th is one of those Noises best heard in Large,Mystical spaces and the Albert Hall is ideal-(i have a weird taste for reverberent acoustics). I had to miss this performance so it's good to catch it here,most enjoyable. The assistant conductor & chorus should have been credited....

[@kotomo1]

"Charles Ives studied music at Yale but left the professional music world at 28 and soon after became a successful insurance executive. Since he did not have to compose for a salary and had no deadlines to meet or commissioners to please, he had freedom to experiment." - from today's New York Times article titled, 'Chaos Assembled, Beauty Emerges'.

[@nobodady1]

I've been inclined to think the same, regarding atonal as a misnomer when applied to Ives, who clearly did not eschew tonal practices altogether, and conspicuously layered sections in different keys -- hence "polytonal". However, after reading Alan Forte's essay, "Ives and Atonality" my view has changed. Specifically, Forte distinguishes between 12-tone serialism on the one hand and late tonality/post tonality on the other. Ives music is closer to the latter.

[@user-nv1mb5wx7m]

Брависсимо!!!🙏🙏🙏♥️♥️♥️

[@patrickcrosby3824]

Disjointed? Muddled? Well, it seems to me that Stolowski said in his discussion for the NET broadcast that there were several problems score, that could not be fixed without making changes to the score, which he was unwilling to do without the composers permission. So, inevitably, each conductor is going to have to make several of his choices of his own. Therefore, there will be marked differences from one performance to the next. Remember, that it was only with Rockefeller Foundation support that Stokowski got 10 rehearsals. My guess is that they did not have that luxury for this performance. Still, I think all involved are to be commended for performing this work. And overall, I found it quite satisfying, particularly the way the whole thing built to the climax in the middle of the final movement. I think this conductor was able to do that perhaps better than any other performance I have heard. And giving the complexity of the score, that is no small feat.

[@nemorable1]

Patrick Crosby In terms of the difficulty in performing this work live and in terms of the earnest and sincere effort given by the performers, I agree with you. I should have considered the live nature of the recording before I critiqued it.

[@andrewwilliams9599]

My only problem with Stokowski's interpretation was his insistance of the use of a fermata at the end of the 2nd movement. Ives I am sure would have preferred an abrupt ending, and indeed most conductors (including Jose Serebrier, who was one of Stokowski's two assistant conductors) have used the abrupt ending--the musical equivalent of a quick fade to black.

[@michaelberridge1934]

Nice full blooded performance of what is obviously a very difficult task! The complete difference in the 4 movements is very striking. I remember reading in a biography of an instruction Ives on one occasion wrote to his copyist: "Dear Mr Price. Please don't try to make everything nice. All the wrong notes, are right!"

[@windstorm1000]

regarding last sentence--love it! that Ives was tough/fun!

[@SDSsongs]

The fugue is as beautiful as any of Beethoven's slow movements, and all the more so for the chaos that immediately preceded it.

[@OSIRIS1980WHS]

Here’s the most important composition of the 20th century.