Ives: Symphony No 2 / Robert Browning Overture

"This recording represents, in effect, a second premiere of Charles Ives' Symphony No. 2, some four decades after Leonard Bernstein's path-breaking recording for Sony Classical, recently reissued in the "Bernstein Century" series. Why premiere? Because Kenneth Schermerhorn and his excellent Nashville band play Jonathan Elkus' critical edition, prepared on behalf of the Ives Society. This new score supplants the previous "critical edition" edited by Malcolm Goldstein for inclusion in Michael Tilson Thomas' complete symphony cycle. The Society's president (and future conductor of several volumes in this ongoing series), James B. Sinclair explained to me recently that Goldstein's score represented an interim version of the work created in response to a practical need for a comparatively clean score and performance materials. The real musicological job of eliminating thousands of errors, collating and evaluating sources, and deciphering Ives' text has only just been completed, with impressive results that you can hear for yourself."
- David Hurwitz, classicstoday.com (rating 10/10)

"To my ears, Elkus's edition is far preferable to previous ones; he manages to make many pages sound less awkward than in the Cowell edition without dimming Ives's brilliance. The new score is not yet published, but Professor Elkus was kind enough to send me copies of his e-mails to conductor Schermerhorn, detailing and explaining the changes. Many hundreds of changes are markings on a note-by-note basis, which have an overall effect but may not draw the listener's immediate attention. But several will certainly do so. The inclusion of an exposition repeat in the second movement, with its transitional passage, repairs a dysfunction in that movement's harmonic logic. Tempos in movements two and five now correspond to Ives's intentions; Bernstein had made the identical change in the initial metronome indication of the finale but had not known of the other tempo errors. trumpets " that produce the clear, intense timbre that Ives envisioned" (Elkus) are specified for the second movement. One might equate the progression Cowell-Goldstein Elkus to computer noise-suppression programs: Today's versions quiet the background of historical recordings without sacrificing nearly so much music as did earlier programs.

"This new recording radiates the spirit of Ives, even though the orchestra cannot hold a candle to either the Concertgebouw or the New York Philharmonic. And there's the rub. Schermerhorn's performance is a cautious one; despite indications of quicker allegros in the new edition, his are often not up to those of Bernstein or Thomas. On the other hand, Schermerhorn's Andante cantabile and Lento maestoso movements are faster than Bernstein's. I sense that these cautious tempos are in deference to the orchestra, to avoid too great a challenge, an impression bolstered by the Nashville Symphony's recent Carnegie hall performance, where the finale went much faster but the playing became quite sloppy. Although the panache of the New York woodwinds is missed, there is much that is fine in Nashville: A slightly smaller string section is luminous, and the first-horn solos that dominate the finale are superb, at least the equal of any other recording. The clean score, careful playing, and fine, modern, digital recorded sound combine to produce a sweet, fresh account of Ives's symphony, one that complements Bernstein's 1958 recording. Both are essential for the Ives enthusiast, and I do not hesitate to recommend this new disc to anyone coming to Ives for the first time.

"The filler caps the argument for Naxos: The Robert Browning Overture is Ives's longest single span of music and is more representative of his musical vision than the Second Symphony. A late work (1908 - 12), it is advanced and difficult even for Ives, although he later dislike it for being obvious in its techniques. There have been perhaps half a dozen recordings, including a magical one by Leopold Stokowski - whose own muysticism matched up neatly with Ives's - and an unconvincing performance by Morton Gould. This Naxoas disc is also a first recording of a new Elkus edition, which not only corrects many errors in the 1959 published score but makes use of sketches that have come to light since then. A missed deadline keeps me from pursuing details with Elkus, but a first aural impression is of less mystery and more musical logic; Elkus writes that he "clarifies dynamic terraces, establishes rhythmic proportions...." The Nashville Orchestra again distinguishes itself. I suspect that most of the lost mystery was Stokowski rather than Ives. In any case, this may be the only available recording f this fascinating work.

"A line in Elkus's program notes to this disc referring to "Ives's disappointment when he finally heard Bernstein's performance ten days later on the radio..." necessitates a postscript. Henry and Sidney Cowell reported that Ives heard the broadcast on his maid's radio and "emerged form the kitchen doing an awkward little jig of pleasure and vindication." That story stood unchallenged for 14 years between the first and second editions of Charles Ives and His Music. The matter is complicated, and Ives's true feelings may never be known. Sidney Cowell told Jonathan Elkus a few years before her death that she did not alter anything in the second edition that had come "as received information from either of the Iveses" (Elkus, in a private communication). The "maid" in question was Louemily Ryder, a next-door neighbor in West Redding who sometimes helped out at their house. In a 1969 interview, reported in Vivian Perlis's 1974 Charles Ives Remembered, Ryder says that Mr. and Mrs. Ives heard the broadcast at her home, and that he sat quietly through the performance; "after it was over, I'm sure he was very much moved. He stood up, walked over the fireplace, and spat! And then he walked out into the kitchen. Not a word." In Charles Ives and His America (1975), Frank Rossiter states that "obviously pleased by the performance, he was not yet too overawed to inform Bernstein (through his wife's letter of appreciation) that the allegro movements had been 'too slow'." The latest word may be by Jan Swafford, who writes in the 1996 Charles Ives: A Life with Music: "Nobody could figure out whether he was too disgusted or too moved to talk. Likely it was the latter."
- Fanfare (James H. North) January/February 2001

"The five-movement Second Symphony is performed in the Ives Society critical edition by Jonathan Elkins which corrects nearly 1,000 errors in the score used by Leonard Bernstein for the 1951 first performance and his recording. The work was composed in 1900-02, revised 1907-10 and again in 1950. It draws on hymn tunes, college songs, marches and Stephen Foster songs a for its thematic material, all put through the crucible of Ives's extraordinary imagination and emerging in a whirl of eccentric but skilful counterpoint."
- The Sunday Telegraph (Michael Kennedy) December 24, 2000