Ives: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-4
$25.00
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CHARLES IVES
Ives: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-4
Curt Thompson (violin) Rodney Waters (piano)
[ Naxos American Classics / CD ]
Release Date: Monday 28 June 2004
This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.
Charles Ives, a New Englander, was taught first by his father, then at Yale by the German-trained Horatio Parker. Ives was unique for his time as an American composer who wrote works in the "classical-music" tradition but also drew on American popular and traditional music idioms. A life-insurance executive professionally, he created an extraordinary body of compositions only later recognized as a treasurable legacy. Among Ives's chamber works are multi-movement "sets" for small ensembles, string quartets, piano sonatas, and other pieces.
"Ives's four extraordinary Violin Sonatas were written between 1902 and 1906, and are quite a find. Their erratically stimulating originality is in no doubt, but they are also among his most immediately appealing works, with the usual tantalizing snatches of hymns and popular tunes to spice the melodic flow. The First Sonata immediately shows how well Ives can integrate a dialogue in which violin and piano move comfortably and independently together, not always sharing the same invention. The three movements of Sonata No. 2 explain themselves: Autumn; In the Barn (where the fiddle plays for a square dance with a kaleidoscope of popular themes), while the Revival finale opens very gently and evocatively: its energy suddenly bursts forth and then characteristically evaporates into silence." Recommended Penguin Guide
Tracks:
First Sonata for Violin and Piano
Second Sonata for Violin and Piano
Violin Sonata No. 3
Fourth Sonata for Violin and Piano, "Children's Day at the Camp Meeting"
