Orchestral Set No.3 - Charles Ives

Malmö Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Sinclair.

I - Andante moderato: 0:00
II - An Afternoon or During Camp Meetin' Week - One Secular Afternoon (In Bethel). Adagio molto: 6:07
III - Andante: 15:51

Ives' Orchestral Set No.3 was assembled circa 1921 from music composed between 1912-22. It was one of the pieces he was working on in 1927, when one day he came downstairs in tears and told his wife he felt he couldn’t compose anymore. As he later wrote, "I couldn’t seem to keep them up and sailing". These sketches, in various degrees of state, were taken and completed by David Gray Porter (first two movements) and Nors Josephson (third movement).

The extensive drafts and sketches for the Third Set show that Ives’s ideas were still running true and strong, but, sapped by a heart attack and diabetes, he had lost the energy and sustained concentration to pull them together. His mature music had always involved a heroic effort to contain wildly disparate material. Now the centrifugal elements of Ives’s art were escaping his grasp. Yet he continued to add notes to the last movement until as late as 1951. What is adumbrated here is a visionary work we can only wish Ives had found the energy to complete himself. However, the Third Set is powerful as it is, like one of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures.

The first movement is derived from a rejected fourth movement of Ives' Symphony No.3. It opens with calm and serene lines from strings complimented by tubular bells and zither, creating a mysterious and ethereal soundscape. Several hymn tunes then appear and unfold on several instruments, most notably "The Beautiful River", "Dorrnance", "The Shining Shore", "Bethany", etc. These tunes begin to densely accumulate in polytonal and polyrhythmic textures. The music culminates in an expressive and passionate climax, followed by a gradual diminuendo. A slow coda then dissolves in the silence.

The second movement is derived from the Overture and March "1776" and the lost Nationals Overture. It opens with menacing tremoli of strings answered by lyrical phrases of the wood. The tune "America the Beautiful" then appears serenely on strings, but as the music begins to gain momentum, several other hymns and popular tunes are added. A massively dissonant climax explodes as "Columbia Gem of the Ocean" appears triumphally, followed by the march of the British Grenadiers and "The Girl I Left Behind Me" on piccolos. This chaotic and dissonant mass of sound then dissolves in the lyrical "America the Beautiful". Then "Columbia Gem of the Ocean" triumphally reappears, which over several other layers of tunes, leads us to a powerful end.

The third movement begins with solitary notes of flute, violin and harp, over which a tune gradually appears. More instruments slowly enter as the texture becomes more dissonant, dissipating with a more lyrical passage. Then several hymns and tunes appear in a multilayered context; "Azmon", "Dorrnance", "Even Me", "Home! Sweet Home!", "Nettleton", "Old Hundredth", "Retreat", "The Shining Shore" and "Woodworth". The music gains energy, alternating with the lyrical opening tune. As it calms down, an eerie passage takes us back to the enigmatic opening. A gentle and meditative coda, full of questions without answers, ends the whole work.

Picture: "Aurora Borealis" (1865) by the American painter Frederic Edwin Church.

Musical analysis written by myself. Sources: https://t.ly/4f6aK

Unfortunately, the score is not available.