136 BEYOND THE CONTINENT CHARLES IVES AND AMERICAN MUSIC 137

Example VI-2: HOLST,

The Planets, "Venus, the Bringer of Peace," mm.
reason, Holst, rather than Vaughan Williams, had the greater influence
1-10 on English composers of the next generation, who were themselves
Adagio Flutesll t t ~ , L~ more international in orientation.
" Holst's role in English music education was a significant one. He not
v P only held appointments at the Royal College of Musicand at Univer-
sity College, Reading, but was also active in teaching young school-
" I
Oboe~
.. l/ 1=:::....
children and amateurs. A number of his choral works were written for
amateur choir. Holst, who during his earlier years earned his living
pp
V p-'-= ~~ playing trombone in orchestras, also wrote several important compo-
Solo Horn sitions for concert band, including three suites (one of them written as
" I
---- the competition piece for a band contest)-an early precedent for the
v - p~ p
~
twentieth century's serious attention to this previously neglected
ensemble.
The "Renaissance" in English music was only partly a matter of big
Flute'\..pl ~I,'" 1..4- , L~ .hn figures such as Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams, and Holst. Equally
" I
significant was the presence, in the early years of the century, of a whole
f.) I pp group of young composers, less prominent but all talented and com-
P
Clarine~ ~
pletely professional musicians. Collectively they reenergized the English
I
I musical scene, transforming it from an unexciting provincial backwater
-f.) I r into a center of remarkable activity. Prominent among them were
p Granville Bantock (1868-1946), John Ireland (1879-1962), Frank Bridge
Low Strings
(1879-1941), and Arnold Bax (1883-1953). As if to compensate for the
" :
long "gap" in the history of English musical composition, they focused
V '---'"
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Copyright 1921 (Renewe d) J.
v,:"

p
----- pp
~~
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CURWEN & SONS LTD. International Copyng
their output on the standard genres of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries: Bantock wrote several tone poems and programmatic sym-
phonies and Bax produced seven symphonies, while both Bridge and
Ireland concentrated on chamber music. As teachers and models, this
. back toward the tonic region. The soft dynamics (with
t h e musIC f h d ind PlJl1d"\"~, generation laid down a solid foundation for the future development of
diminuendo in each phrase), retarding rhythms 0 t e. woo w English music, and their promise has been fulfilled by the appearance
fallin pitch (both the linear cont~~r of the ~op VOlce and e lal'lgulld,
th
throughout the century of unusually gifted composers.
u:ntial restatement), and repetItIveness gIve .the passage a
seq ful character Yet a definite element of tenSIOn, produced by
peabc~. d ~ildly dissonant polychordal harmony, creates
am 19mty an I . .t f the
impression quite different from the under ymg serem y 0
HARLES IVES AND AMERICAN MUSIC
W'll' s example discussed above.
~Iam Holst's other major works are the oratorio The Hymn Concert music in the United States at the turn of the century was largely
mong
(1917) the Fugal Overture (19 22) ,th e opera At. the Boar's Head. dominated by European models and standards. The accepted practice
and the orchestral piece Egdon Heath (1927), which the compose~ was to send young musicians who displayed unusual talent to Europe
. fimest composl.tion . The works of the 1920s
as hIS . dshow a renewe
.. I for their musical education, and almost all of the major American com-
. . t and in general a more restrame composltIOna of the period, including George W. Chadwick (1854-1931),
m counterpom , . ' H d for example is
( h of the music in At the Boar s ea, .'. I-irl,u~.",.; MacDowell (1860-1908), and Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-
muc d C )-stylistic features m keepmg
seventeenth-century ance 10rms. . d h'ch were trained in German conservatories, where they absorbed the
neo-classical trend in European musIC of the tIme an bW I forms, and techniques of central European art music. Their music
minimize the nationalistic qualities in Holst. No dou t thus for the most part devoid of elements drawn from America's
142 BEYOND THE CONTINENT
CHARLES IVES AND AMERICAN MUSIC 143

Example VI-3: IVES, The Things Our Fathers Loved, mm. 1-9 D~). A more or less straightforward quotation of On the Banks of the
Slowly and sustained Wabash follows in mm. 6-7 (in G major, although the accompaniment
suggests F major here); and finally, beginning with the upbeat to m. 8,
Voice
A P
- there is a clear reference to the hymn Nettleton.
tr '--..!!
1_
-.
think there
*
must be a
-=
place in all_
Thus the entire vocal line is patched together out of isolated frag-
the soul ments from borrowed tunes, reflecting the sort of special logic associ-

-.:r
1\

---- -
te}~
~
ated with things distantly and indistinctly remembered. This perfectly
complements the song's text, by Ives himself, which includes a series
of separate and (by normal standards) disconnected "snapshot" recol-
:
Pp, ~I pp" ..,; *"", -=:::~ --0
lections. Yet how convincingly Ives manages to integrate everything
into a series of continuously unfolding phrases that, despite their diverse
~. ~.
r p
r origins, form a larger unity. He does this in part by techniques of
A 4_

";\,00'"
madc_ of tunes,
,)-<

of_
- \.00""
,.- )----,

tunes of long a - go; I

-- - ~

hear the or - gan on the !v1ain Street

rhythmic and pitch cohesion (overlapping phrases, linear connections,
etc.), and in part by a web of interrelated motivic associations encom-
passing all the different materials. To cite just one instance of the latter:
the falling fourth G-D, which forms the end of both the Wabash quote
(m. 7, beats 1-2) and the Nettleton quote (last quarter ofm. 8 to m. 9),
A I. L.-., J ,....-.::i ~J~J L---' 1 ~~ is both anticipated (m. 6) and echoed (m. 9) in the top line of the accom-
paniment. Significantly, Ives must alter the last notes of both the Wabash

)", ~I
~ L
"1
l~lJn
~

-1 1 -J "_ ~
and Nettleton quotes to produce this connection. Here, as elsewhere, the
distortions of borrowed material are not arbitrary, but form part of an
encompassing idea.
~~t--'f 1-----.--
~

Ives's use of quotation led him to an entirely new approach to com-

Sa ..
short by a syncopated repeat of the opening of Dixie on the
eighth of m. 3. (The accompaniment imitates both Dixie quotes,
in the "wrong" key.) But the fragment of My Old Kentucky
picked up again, now starting on F (m. 3, third quarter), and rep
once more (m. 4, last quarter), here finally with the correct rhyt
the original tune. A completely literal quotation, however,
duce the pitches Dq and Cq, rather than D and q, i~ mm..4
melodic distortion that results from raising these pItches IS
Ives and explains their unusual spelling (D and C rather
position, conceived as a joining of heterogeneous elements into a larger
approach that might be described as "combinational."
individual components that make up the music-drawn from a
rah hum .. rning Gos pels; range of sources, some borrowed and some purely original-are
lm~taIPo:>ed both sequentially and simultaneously. Musical form becomes
atter of balancing and reconciling these divergent elements, and an
portant aspect of the expressive content derives from the unexpected
ciations called up by their conjunction. Thus, although the mate-
s.Ives uses are usually quite "ordinary," the way he uses them gives
a new and unexpected life; they are transformed by their sur-
dings.
in Ives, then, is not just a matter of relationships among the
(although this is important-the various borrowed elements
piece, for example, almost always share important musical
lC;ll~lJ.C~. which Ives is at pains to exploit). A unity is also imposed
materials from without, by the consistency ofIves's attitude
and their appearance within a larger, encompassing
(In such respects, as well as in others, Ives resembles Mah-
pr'oQ;re:ssive. innovative side is found in its most concentrated
works for small chamber combinations of varied instru-