IVES: Piano Sonata No. 2 / The Celestial Railroad - Steven Mayer

Charles Ives is today considered by many to be America’s greatest composer. His landmark Concord Sonata, characterized by the composer as an attempt to present one person’s impression of the ‘spirit of transcendentalism’ associated with Concord, Mass.’, comprises musical reflections on the 19th century New England Transcendentalist writers Thoreau, born in Concord, and Emerson, Hawthorne and the Alcotts who lived there for extended periods. The Sonata was a very special work for the composer, ‘representative of [his] highest achievements in richness of harmony and freedom of rhythm, and stamped unmistakably with [his] highly individual personality’. The present recording interpolates readings from Emerson, Thoreau, and Ives himself. The Emerson Transcriptions and The Celestial Railroad re-use material from the Sonata while the mainly dissonant Variations are a protest-parody of audience rejection of modern music.

 Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60, "Concord Sonata"

 Varied Air and Variations

 The Celestial Railroad

 Transcriptions from "Emerson", No. 1