2nd symphony (Ives)
The 2nd Symphony JS2 by the composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) was composed between 1897 and 1902 and had its world premiere in 1951 in New York City . The work is in five movements and shows predominantly late romantic features.
Origin and premiere
Charles Ives began work on his Symphony No. 2 in 1897, the main aim of which was to combine traditional European and American music in one piece. Since he was earning his living full-time as an entrepreneur from 1899 onwards, he only composed in his free time and completed the work in 1902. Five years later, he took up work on the piece again and revised it before he had the fair copy made in 1909.
The world premiere did not take place until February 22, 1951 at Carnegie Hall in New York City with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein . Despite many ambiguities and errors in the score, it was a great success, even if Ives did not attend the event himself. He listened to radio broadcasts from his neighbors because of his old age.
At the turn of the millennium , Jonathan Elkus, lecturer at the University of California , tried to reconstruct the piece due to the many score errors.
Occupation and structure
The piece is set up with a piccolo , 2 flutes , 2 clarinets , 2 oboes , 2 bassoons , contrabassoon , 4 horns , 2 trumpets , 3 trombones , timpani , triangle , snare drum , bass drum and strings .
The sequence of sentences with a total playing time of around 40 minutes is:
- Andante moderato
- Allegro
- Adagio cantabile
- Lento (maestoso)
- Allegro molto vivace
The five movements of the symphony do not all stand thematically for themselves. The introductory string theme of the first movement is reused in the fourth movement in a slightly varied way. The following movements (two and five) have a similar march-like character. There are various musical quotations , including Ludwig van Beethoven , and recurring ragtime elements appear alongside romantic melodies . In contrast to the rest of the piece, the finale ends with a loud dissonance .
Web links
- Description of the symphony on peermusicclassical.com (J. Elkus) ( Memento from May 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- Description of the symphony on the website of the Pomona College Orchestra ( Memento of July 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Text accompanying a performance by the hr-Sinfonieorchester on hr-online.de (Andreas Maul; Hugh Wolff)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on Klassika.info , April 2011
- ↑ Article on the website of the University of California, Davis (Kathleen Holder) , April 2011 (Eng.)