Piano Sonata No. 2 (Ives)
The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as the Concord Sonata) is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts around 45 minutes.
History[edit]
Some material in the Concord Sonata dates back as far as 1904, but Ives did not begin substantial work on it until around 1909 and largely completed the sonata by 1915.[1] The Concord Sonata was first published in 1920[1] with a second, revised, edition appearing in 1947.[2] It is this version which is usually performed today. In 2012, a reprint of the original, uncorrected 1920 edition was published, including Essays before a Sonata and with an added introductory essay by the New England Conservatory's Stephen Drury.[3]
Ives recalled performing parts of the (then incomplete) sonata as early as 1912.[4] However, the earliest known public performances of the sonata following its publication date back to October 1920, when author Henry Bellamann, who had been writing and lecturing about new music, persuaded a pianist named Lenore Purcell to tackle the work. According to Henry and Sidney Cowell, "she gave performances of it, usually one movement at a time, in conjunction with Bellamann's lectures, across the southern states from New Orleans to Spartanburg, South Carolina."[5]
During the late 1920s, a number of pianists including Katherine Heyman, Clifton Furness, E. Robert Schmitz, Oscar Ziegler, Anton Rovinsky, and Arthur Hardcastle performed various movements of the sonata.[6] In the spring of 1927, John Kirkpatrick saw the score of the sonata on Heyman's piano in her Paris studio and was intrigued.[7] He borrowed Heyman's copy and soon contacted Ives to request his own copy, which he promptly received. Kirkpatrick began learning and performing individual movements of the piece and engaged in regular correspondence with Ives, and in 1934, he decided to learn the entire piece.[7] Kirkpatrick met Ives in person for the first time in 1937,[8] and by 1938, Kirkpatrick was playing the entire sonata, performing it for the first time at a private concert in Stamford, Connecticut.[4] (In a letter to Ives dated June 22, 1938, Kirkpatrick wrote: "Last night, in our little series here, we got to the American impressionists, and I trotted out the whole Concord Sonata — not yet from memory — but it was nice to feel its unity."[9])
On November 28 of that year, Kirkpatrick performed the sonata in its entirety at a public concert in Cos Cob, Connecticut,[4] and on January 20, 1939, he gave the sonata its New York premiere at Town Hall in New York City.[6] Among those present was Elliott Carter, who reviewed the piece in the March–April 1939 edition of the journal Modern Music.[10][11] The Cowells wrote that the premiere generated "a riot of enthusiasm,"[6] and stated that "the audience responded so warmly that one movement had to be repeated, and on 24 February, at a second Town Hall program that was devoted entirely to Ives, Mr. Kirkpatrick repeated the whole Sonata by popular request."[6] Kirkpatrick proceeded to play the sonata in major cities around the United States.[12]
Recordings and other uses[edit]
The piece has been recorded on a number of occasions, first by John Kirkpatrick in 1945 (released on Columbia Records in 1948, and a best-seller for several months[12]). Ives himself made a complete recording of "The Alcotts" and excerpts of the first two movements. (These and other recordings of Ives playing his own compositions were released by CRI in 1999 on a CD titled Ives Plays Ives.[23]) Other exponents of the work include Nina Deutsch, Gilbert Kalish, Easley Blackwood, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Stephen Drury, Marc-André Hamelin, Heather O'Donnell, Herbert Henck, Alan Feinberg, Richard Aaker Trythall, Phillip Bush, Roberto Szidon and most recently Jeremy Denk, Alan Mandel, James Drury, and Melinda Smashey Jones. Martin Perry plays the final edition made by John Kirkpatrick in the 1980s.
In 1986, Bruce Hornsby borrowed the opening phrase of "The Alcotts" movement as the introduction to his hit "Every Little Kiss" (as heard on the album The Way It Is). In an interview, Hornsby stated: "Charles Ives was a huge favorite of mine and still is. In fact, I almost got sued: one of my first singles, 'Every Little Kiss,' had an intro that was sort of an homage to Ives. I was basically paraphrasing the third movement of his Concord Sonata..."[24]
In 1996 the work, retitled A Concord Symphony, was transcribed for orchestra by Henry Brant.[25]
Merlin Patterson transcribed the sonata for large symphonic wind ensemble.[26]