How does Ives incorporate elements
from the musical world around him into his own compositions? Looking at his
second symphony, we can see that he uses the influence of European classical
music in his work. First, this symphony uses the cyclic form famously used in
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Cyclic form occurs when a later movement contains
thematic material that appeared in an earlier movement. Ives also tended to
borrow transitional passages from Brahms’s symphonies as well as from the
prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Borrowed episodes from Bach fugues can also
be found in his music.
Do you find it interesting that Ives attempted
to base his compositions in European tradition despite his American roots?
Ives felt that it was important to
hold onto traits that characterize both European and American traditional music
by paraphrasing the American tunes using European forms. One of his
distinguishing compositional techniques is the quotation of American popular
songs and hymns. The method by which Ives went about quoting these American pop songs and hymns involved
the creation of thematic material that paraphrased an American tune followed by
reconstructing them into a theme that was more symphonic in nature. By doing
this, Ives was making the national material of America follow a more
international style. Though the original American tunes were all decent, they
needed to be re-worked in order to be considered appropriate symphonic themes.
An example of this re-working of
themes can be found in the opening of the second movement in Ives’ second
symphony. Here, Ives re-constructs Henry Clay’s Civil War song, “Wake
Nicodemus,” into a more symphonic theme. Despite his alterations, Ives is still
successful in preserving the character that made the tune distinctively
American, thus preserving the American sound. Other examples of musical
quotation in his Symphony No. 2 include “O Columbia Gem of the Ocean,” “America
the Beautiful,” music similar to the organ and choir music found in the Long
Green Organ Book, and others. Though Ives frequently uses musical quotations,
he never sounded the original tune in its entirety. Rather, he allowed the melody line to lead to
a new point that was not found in the original.
What are your
thoughts on Ives’ compositional approach? Do you think the use of musical
quotation conjures up nationalist sentiments when listening to his music?
