Ravinia 2019, Issue 6, Week 12

material for several of Ives’s later large-scale compositions. When Ives left Central Presbyte- rian Church on June 1, 1902, he “left all his best choral and organ music in the choir library,” ac- cording to pianist and scholar John Kirkpatrick. These manuscripts were lost or discarded when the church relocated in 1915 and 1929. Ives wrote his Symphony No. 3 between 1901 and 1904, though revisions continued until 1911. An entry in Memos provided clues to the three hymn settings used in this work, all of which originated as organ and string quartet composi- tions for Central Presbyterian Church. The first movement, Old Folks Gatherin’ , likely began as a prelude on the hymn tune Azmon (“Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”). A countermelo- dy in the symphony draws fragments from the hymn tune Converse , alternatively known as Erie (“What a Friend We Have in Jesus”). Ives composed the music in Children’s Day as a post- lude on the hymn tune Fountain (“There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”). The slow, medi- tative finale originated as a setting of the hymn tune Woodworth (“Just as I Am”) entitled Piece for Communion . Fragments of “Oh for a Thou- sand Tongues” reappear like distant memories. Since Ives had given up access to his source ma- terials, he must have mentally reconstructed all three scores, a task well within the realm of pos- sibility, for—according to composer and con- ductor Lou Harrison, who assisted Ives in his old age—“the man had memory of every page he’d ever written.” Notations on the sketches in- dicate that Ives completed the orchestration for chamber orchestra in 1904, revised the scoring in 1909, and made the final ink copy in 1910. While Ives left no programmatic narrative, the order of hymns suggests the broad outlines of a late-19th-century “camp meeting,” a phe- nomenon among Protestant denominations in the British Isles and frontier United States. For the widely dispersed faithful who gathered to worship in remote wooded locations, camp meetings led by an ordained itinerant preacher (or preachers) provided an intensive religious experience and a rare opportunity to receive communion. Preaching, praying, and singing took place over several days but invariably cul- minated in an invitation to repentance or altar call. Ives’s orchestral score traces this spiritual journey from the gathering through the ecsta- sies of the religious meeting and concluding with repentance and communion. Ives described Symphony No. 3 as a transitional work, “a kind of crossway between the old ways and the newer ways.”Though he provided no ex- planation for this distinction, there are elements in this composition that represented new exper- imentations. For example, versions of the score included “shadow lines,” soft dissonant parts that run parallel to the melody in the fashion of mutation stops, such as the quint and tierce, on an organ. A more fundamental innovation involved the compositional process. Fragments of themes are presented and undergo develop- ment at the beginning of the movement, while the actual theme is revealed or heard complete only toward the end. This inversion of European sonata principles has been described as “cumu- lative form” by Ives scholar J. Peter Burkholder. Ives attempted to secure a performance of Sym- phony No. 3 in 1911, when he sent a profession- al copy to Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Damrosch sent no reply. Around October 16, 1934, Ives began systematically organizing his manuscripts and sketches in a cabinet built inside an unused horse stall in the barn at his country home in West Redding, CT. The manuscript of Sympho- ny No. 3 was recovered during this process. In collaboration with Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison edited the “old, almost illegible score” for perfor- mance. The New York Little Symphony, under Harrison’s direction, presented the long-over- due world premiere on May 5, 1947. Unbeknownst to Ives, Harrison then nominated Symphony No. 3 for the 1947 Pulitzer Prize in Music, which it won. The astonished compos- er responded in typical curmudgeonly fashion: “Prizes are the badges of mediocrity.” Harmony Twichell Ives, writing to Harrison in 1947, relayed her husband’s somewhat sarcastic expression of appreciation: “As you are very much to blame for getting me into that Pulitzer Prize street, and for having a bushel of letters to answer, and for having a check of $500 thrown over me by the trustees of Colum[bia] Uni[versity] you have to help me by taking 1/2 [of] this [award].” SAMUEL BARBER Violin Concerto, op. 14 Scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, military drum, piano, strings, and solo violin Barber’s musical gifts shone bright at a young age. Growing up in West Chester, PA, Barber studied piano and cello from an early age, and by his teens, he was playing organ at a local church. Barber enrolled at the newly formed Curtis Institute of Music in 1924 (attending two years concurrently with his regular high school) and graduated eight years later. Still in his 20s, Barber received numerous composition awards. He twice earned the Bearns Prize (1928 and 1933), which gave Barber his first opportunity to travel to Europe. A Pulitzer Travel Grant (1935) and the American Prix de Rome (1936) subsi- dized a further sojourn to Italy in 1936. Three years later, Barber again traveled to Eu- rope with his first major commission in hand—a concert piece for former Russian child prodigy violinist Iso ( né Isaak) Briselli (1912–2005), un- derwritten by the industrialist and philanthro- pist Samuel S. Fels, whose company manufac- tured the popular Fels Naptha soap. Fels served as Briselli’s sponsor and surrogate father when the young boy entered Curtis in January 1925. Barber and Briselli were both members of Cur- tis’s first graduating class. Recently unearthed correspondence (2010) in the Samuel Simeon Fels Papers at the Histori- cal Society of Pennsylvania has clarified details of the commission and debunked a myth about Briselli’s dissatisfaction with the finished prod- uct. Fels offered the commission in early May 1939, agreeing to a substantial $1,000 fee plus incidental copying costs for a three-movement work to be completed by October 1. He paid half the fee on May 23, with the remainder due upon delivery of the finished work. Briselli would retain exclusive performance rights until Janu- ary 1, 1941. Barber drafted two movements during the sum- mer of 1939 in Sils-Maria, Switzerland. Growing tension in Europe drove the young composer back to the United States in early September. Af- ter a short visit with his family in West Chester, Barber resumed work in the Pocono Mountains, delivering the first two movements in mid-Oc- tober. While Briselli was delighted with the work-in-progress, his violin coach, Albert Meiff, Charles Ives Russian violinist Iso Briselli AUGUST 19 – AUGUST 25, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 91