114 Songs
Redding, CT: C.E. Ives, [1922].
Folio. Original dark blue buckram boards with titling gilt to upper and spine. 1f. (recto half-title, verso blank), [iii] (index), [i] (colophon), 259, [i] (Ives's printed notes on individual songs], [ii] (Ives's printed notes on the genesis and inspiration for the songs, etc.) pp., 1f. (recto colophon, verso blank).
Light uniform browning, very slightly heavier to margins. In very good condition overall.
First Edition, second issue, limited to 1,000 copies. Kirkpatrick p. 151. Rossiter p. 183. De Lerma S78. Sinclair p. 658.
The first issue of the present work, printed in a run of 500, was not commercially available; instead, Ives sent free copies to musicians and others he thought would be interested. As demand exceeded supply, he reissued the work in a second press run of 1,000 copies.
"The 114 Songs forms the most original, imaginative, and powerful body of vocal music that we have from any American, and the songs have provided the readiest path to Ives's musical thinking for most people. Many of them have a touching lyrical quality; some are angry, others satirical. The best of them are musically very daring, with vocal lines that are hard for the conventionally trained artist, accompaniments that are often frightfully difficult, and rhythmic and tonal relations between voice and piano which require real work to master. Even when the melodic line alone presents no special problem, in combination with the accompaniment it offers a real challenge to musicianship. Surmounting the difficulties of this music creates an intensity in the performer that approaches the composer's original exaltation and has brought audiences to their feet with enthusiasm and excitement. But the simplest and least characteristic of the songs are still the most often performed. Like Schoenberg, whose fame rests on musical usages that had not yet appeared in the early pieces ordinarily performed on concert programs, Ives has been represented, as a rule, by pieces that have little or nothing to do with the music that made his reputation." Cowell: Charles Ives and his Music, pp. 80-81.
"[Ives's] music is marked by an integration of American and European musical traditions, innovations in rhythm, harmony, and form, and an unparalleled ability to evoke the sounds and feelings of American life. He is regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the early 20th century." J. Peter Burkholder, James B. Sinclair, and Gayle Sherwood Magee in Grove Music Online.
Item #39248
Price: $800.00 other currencies