Charles Ives Universe Symphony Realized and Conducted by Johnny Reinhard and the American Festival of Microtonal Music Recorded by: The Stereo Society James Rosenthal, Engineer Mike Thorne, Producer ___________________________________ Charles Ives "Universe" Symphony "Nothing More To Say" by Michael Berest Contributing Editor August 4, 2005 Johnny Reinhard’s realization of Charles Ives’s “Universe Symphony” makes many things come to mind, but probably the best place to start is the myths about the piece it dispels. This concert piece is a far different conception of “Universe” than the description I first read of it: something that was supposed to be about multiple orchestras on mountain tops that Ives didn't have the wherewithal to do. Which brings up the second “myth,” namely that Ives’s left the work incomplete and not performable. I may not be the best authority to express why I believe this is a myth. Nonetheless, as I’ll speak of further on, the piece feels complete, both in an overall structure that can be detected by the ear, and a sense the music, as put together, very much has a story with a beginning, middle, and end to tell. The “Universe Symphony” lacks the quotations, either of traditional songs, classical pieces, or Ives’s own previous compositions. Yet, despite this, it still sounds like no one else’s music. There's something that sounds like a major motive from the Concord Sonata and something at the end in high strings that sounds like the Coda of the Finale of String Quartet No. 2. In fact, all the different melodic ideas going on simultaneously bear the imprint we hear in everything from "From the Steeples and the Mountains," to the woodwinds in "Unanswered Question," to the layers of disjointed texture in "Fourth of July" and "Hanover Square North." If one was attuned enough, one could hear just about everything Ives ever had composed in “Universe,” especially those works which have multiple ideas happening simultaneously. In this regard, we can go all the way back to the polytonal section of Ives’s "Variations on America," composed when he was 14. If there could ever be such a thing, this is the final piece of the Ives puzzle. Ives was moving toward "Universe" from "Variations on America" onward. I just don't think he knew exactly what he was moving toward until he got there, other than he was trying to "stop listening to the singing and hear the music." But this is not simply a new way of writing music. "Universalism," if I may use that term divorced from its religious connotations, goes to the very essence of why we write music, making sense of disorder without having to try to impose order on it, ceasing to listen to the singing in order to hear the music. Or hear nature, itself. One interesting thing about “Universe” is a complex scheme of “mirror imaging.” Ives appears to have put a palindromic figure at almost the dead center of the 64 minutes of the symphony. There is a similar idea going from the “Pulse of the Cosmos” to “Earth is of the Heavens,” marked by a low bell at the beginning of one and the end of the other. This overlays even smaller mirrored sections of percussions, referred to as cycles, in which layers of percussive colors and rhythms build up, then are peeled away. Perhaps this is Ives’s way of catching the symmetry of nature, from the level of the atom to that of the galaxies. There are three separate “orchestras” in “Universe,” and Mr. Reinhard has pointed out they occasionally come together like an eclipse. But the Heavens, Cosmos and Earth, which each of the three orchestras represent, respectively, seem to not so much be the sky, the atmosphere (or outer space), and the Earth arranged in a straight line, but more like three planets or vectors arranged in a triangle. We start off from Earth (“Earth Alone”), then, in “Pulse of the Cosmos,” make a parabola shaped flight around the cosmos (with an apogee and perigee, as the pulse grows louder, then recedes, then grows louder, then recedes) then to the Heavens (with the same oval shaped orbit). The "orbits" become increasingly complex through the rest of the Symphony. Although the symphony is really an indivisible whole, there are two parts, nonetheless, which need more description. In “Pulse of the Cosmos,” Ives loses any inhibition he may have had left to pure percussion, and in the process makes the Varese of “Ionization” sound like Rachmaninoff. What is different about the pure percussion sections of " Universe" is that they are not a part of the same universe (small u) as Varese’s. There are no percussion rhythms that would sound close to Rachmaninoff if you assigned pitches to them. The Ives we started out with isn't there anymore. The music is not impersonal, but the personality is now above and beyond human, like the consciousness of a supreme being, who, if you're a pantheist, can speak very personally in the seemingly random rhythms of the pulse of the cosmos. What may appear here initially slow and repetitive becomes quicker and quite varied on repeated hearings. The first three cycles of percussion in “Pulse” become “melodic,” not in the way Varese does in Ionization, but in the way Ives chooses percussion instruments and layers them. At first, I didn't understand why the percussion pauses before the beginning of each “measure” of “Pulse” (not so much measures as “basic units” of 16 seconds). But that pause, where all the percussion seems to go silent at the same time, then all hit the "downbeat" of the next basic unit at the same time is akin to the "melody" idea. It's the parsing of the "melody." It gives it a sense of organization, that each basic unit isn't simply a designation of time, but something like a ground bass, or a variation. There really has been only one part for me of “Universe” that was enjoyable divorced from all the others. It works on its own, and it's "The Earth is of the Heavens." This is the grand finale, the meditation followed by the great outburst of joy, followed by a dwindling down to silence. That would seem to describe a couple of Mahler Finales (those from the 3rd and 10th Symphonies would be the ones) except this is not organized in any way like Mahler. The mellowness derives from the Earth and Heavens orchestras moving toward (though not necessarily ever attaining) synchronization. The coalescences of those two orchestras suddenly start forming chords that seem more tonal than what came before. They aren't tonal, of course, and they aren’t synchronized, but just as at the climax of the Finale of Ives’s Fourth Symphony, the three orchestral groups still manage to create something that sounds like they are. The difference is with the 4th’s finale, Ives is still using quotations and original melodies as formal elements, where here he uses no quotations, and the phrasing of the melodies makes it difficult to understand them as such. ”Earth is of the Heavens,” however, curiously represents the understanding of order in the apparent chaos of what came before. Once that is understood, we are ready to move on to new worlds. Like Finnegans Wake, it's an analogue to that book's final chapter, where the language becomes more and more lucid because, as some interpret, the person "dreaming" the novel is waking up. “Earth is of the Heavens” has this feeling of starting to wake up from a dream. All the pitched instruments melt away, with one last deep sound to the end piece. When I heard that last sound, the same low bell that begins “The Pulse of the Cosmos,” I suddenly felt there was no way one could conclude Ives did not finish this work. An intuitive feeling rather than an objective conclusion? Perhaps. But I can think of no other composer, American or otherwise, as intuitive as Charles Edward Ives. I'd have to contend, without exaggerating, this redefines what Ives is to us. To not know this would be to try to judge Beethoven without ever hearing his 9th Symphony or his last string quartets. Here, Ives had reached a place he couldn't go past, only because he had gone past where anyone had ever gone before. Ives soon stopped composing because, after "Universe," what was there left to say? -- Michael Berest Contributing Editor

On July 4, 2005, The Stereo Society released their newly completed recording of Charles Ives' Universe Symphony, realized and conducted by Johnny Reinhard, who sat with us for an hour to discuss his project and Charles Ives. Let this interview with Johnny Reinhard be a great prelude to listening to one of the most amazing pieces of western symphonic music ever written. You can learn more about the musicians on the CD, all members of Mr. Reinhard's organization, The American Festival of Microtonal Music by clicking the link above. To hear samples of the Universe Symphony and to buy the CD, please visit The Stereo Society's link. Click each item to see the video: 1. "A new resevoir of relationships..." 2. "Unfortunately, Lou was not comfortable with giving me a copy..." 3. "I don't think he competed with anyone but himself..." 4. "Is this a guy who doesn't finish things...?" 5. "People aren't willing to see patterns to this very day..." 6. "He was the best." 7. "First of all, it takes a large room..." _______________________________ Charles Ives' Fifth Symphony "...one tune is Yankee Doodle and the other one isn't." by Edward Sackett, Senior Music Editor July 28, 2005 There is one thing that all accomplished symphonic composers share: they always sound like themselves: Beethoven is always Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Ravel, Schoenberg, Copland..... The obvious reason is that the emotional and psychic materials these composers employ to create music comes from a synthesis of the objective reality of their lives and the subjective flavor of their past development and that synthesis is what becomes a major ingredient in how the music is made and how it ultimately sounds. This synthesis was certainly no more apparent than in the work of American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), who used quotes and "samples" from his 19th century cultural life and imbued his music with snippets of band marches, parlor songs, church hymns and popular ditties of the day. This practice is found in virtually all of his symphonic works from the whimsical "Central Park in the Dark" to the most reverential "From Hanover Square North…" -- in fact, there are only two exceptions I can think of that don't use materials from the popular idioms; one is "The Unanswered Question," composed in 1907, a piece that actually sounds like a soundtrack for a modern age space movie; this is Ives' musical idea of what he thought the cosmos sounded like with muted strings running slowly though a cadence of simple, orderly chords, with a solo trumpet asking a question about the nature of existence and in return, hearing only chaotic and un-orderly woodwinds making noise but failing to answer. The only other exception is Ives' -- some say unfinished, but certainly unassembled --"Universe Symphony." Sketched in 1913, the overall design of the piece was something outside of Ives' typical focus and it sat, unread and undisturbed for decades until Ives, too infirm to work, asked his friend and composer Henry Cowell to help him complete the symphony. Cowell refused and the piece was not assembled for performance until Johnny Reinhard, microtonal composer and instrumentalist, had a chance meeting with Ives champion Lou Harrison in 1986 and began a decade-long effort to assemble and "realize" the Universe Symphony from Ives' handwritten sketches. Composer Lou Harrison conducted the first public performance of Ives' Third Symphony in 1946, which secured Ives a Pulitzer Prize the following year. That was the one of the first performances of symphonic music by Ives that began the slow process of introducing him to concert audiences. Forty years later, Johnny Reinhard, visiting Lou Harrison in California, encounters a copy of Ives' handwritten sketches for the Universe Symphony; ten years later, the piece is finally performed at Lincoln Center, and ten years after that, we have this recording. This magnificent and historic recording of the Universe Symphony by Johnny Reinhard and the American Festival of Microtonal Music is an event on par of importance with not only Lou Harrison's performance of the Third, but also Leonard Bernstein's debut of the Second Symphony in 1951 and the 1965 performance and recording of Ives' Fourth Symphony by Leopold Stokowski in terms of presenting and defining Charles Ives' music to the listening public and is a landmark event in the performance history of one of the most important composers of any age. The first (and only) performance of the Universe Symphony was for 900 lucky people at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in NYC in June of 1996. The recording of Reinhard's "realization," now finally available from The Stereo Society, took another decade to complete. Johnny Reinhard and his producer Mike Thorne, having limited resources, recorded the symphony using a small number of accomplished players (mostly from the American Festival of Microtonal Music Orchestra) doubling and tripling the parts and assembled the record much in the manner of how modern pop music is recorded, track upon track until the "whole" is achieved. There is nothing to prepare the listener for what Reinhard and his team present in this recording and being familiar with Ives' music does not offer any special insights into what the Universe Symphony is and does either. American pianist Donna Coleman, who has recorded both piano sonatas of Charles Ives, insists that to understand Ives' creative process, one need only to listen to both piano sonatas together, in one complete performance to hear his internal process. This can probably be said of his Fourth Symphony and the Universe Symphony, as well. The Fourth Symphony completed in 1916 is a complete departure from the entire tradition of symphonic writing up until that point, with the exception of the third movement which is a traditional fugue based on a well known hymn tune. Some say this was Ives pandering to the European tradition he was both impatient with and ambivalent about, but more realistically, it was to remind the listener that Charles Ives, like him or not, possessed an extraordinary set of musical chops - either way, it's great fugue writing, even if you dislike fugues. But the Fourth Symphony ends with only percussion - a first in symphonic writing. Then the Universe, which starts with a short one page "fragment" which seems arbitrary, as if Ives was starting his new symphony with the same old elements of the European tradition and then decided against it - the real beginning of the symphony actually seems to be the 29 minutes of drumming in a section called "Pulse of the Cosmos" - and if one listens to the final movement of Ives' 4th and allows the Universe Symphony to begin, the connection between the two percussion sections in the two symphonies becomes more than circumstantial. The "drumming" in the Universe Symphony is not written for metrical counting, as most music is - in this case the "units" are divided not by measures and time signatures, but by a 16 second unit of time - every 16 seconds there is a punctuation of bass drums and cymbal crash that on one hand seems primordial, but if one listens enough to the downbeat every 16 seconds, one hears not the drum beat of some arcane Druid mass but the downbeat of a typical 19th century marching band, whose downbeat was always bass drum(s) and a cymbal crash - and it may have been one of the earliest musical sounds Charles Ives remembers. Ives' only real musical hero and role model was his father George Ives, local Danbury, Connecticut music teacher and who was a bandmaster during the Civil War and (as legends says) led the army band that played at Lincoln's appearance at Gettysburg in 1863. It is said that an aide turned to Lincoln and said: "That is supposed to be one of the best bands in the Union Army." Lincoln answered: "You couldn't tell it by me; I only know two tunes - one's Yankee Doodle and the other one isn't." I don't know if the story is really true but it is very telling about the experience listening to the Universe Symphony: Ives symphonies are like Yankee Doodle and then with the Universe -- they aren't. The sound of this symphony is enormous. It insists that you listen to it countless times - it plays in the background and some of it starts to sound familiar and other sections sound different every time one encounters them. In the 7th section called "Earth is of the Heavens," there is one "A-men" cadence but it takes a long time to get there and when it happens one doesn't immediately recognize it. Listening to this symphony makes one experiment with listening. My first time was laying on the floor with a good pair of earphones on, much the way I used to listen to Led Zeppelin (Two), laying between 2 KLH 12 inch speakers leaned on each ear, in the dark. My second listening, I watched a wall clock with a second hand and watched each 16 second unit of drumming pass by - after a while you close your eyes and start to "feel" the downbeat of bass drums and cymbals and "feeling" the slight hesitation before each downbeat - as if time itself hangs there for a second or two. Charles Ives thought that dissonance and surprises in music help to "stretch the audience's ears" so they can accommodate music that is new and different and I can tell you that after a half hour of drumming that doesn't have a discernible beat, anything you hear afterwards will have a new sound. When the orchestral instruments finally start playing, it is no longer the Charles Ives one learns to expect, no hymn tune Amen cadences, no quotation from "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," no whimsical music jokes - it's just pure music and it's pure Charles Ives. -- Edward Sackett Senior Music Editor