Time to discover Charles Ives’s trio

Monday 21 November 2011

I am going to devote this space today to a single piece of music, the Piano Trio by American composer and musical frontiersman Charles Ives.

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Michael Tumelty

I simply want to draw attention to its existence. I’m tempted to suggest that even the most case-hardened readers of this column will probably not have heard of it; but I’ll err on the side of caution, as I know only too well that there are fiercely knowledgeable and completist collectors of all manner of musical obscurities out there.

To tell you the truth, until five months ago I was unaware of the Piano Trio myself. And that admission comes from someone who, on numerous occasions, has gone on and on with near-missionary zeal about the neglect in this country of the music of Charles Ives. There was a wee bit a few years ago at the Edinburgh International Festival when we heard Gunther Schuller conducting the Fourth Symphony, while pianist Llyr Williams gave a staggering performance of the colossal Concord Sonata. But apart from these, and a few bits and pieces, including a performance of the sensational Second Symphony many years ago by the BBC SSO, Scotland has been pretty much an Ives-free zone.About five months ago I received a phone call from James Waters, creative director of the classical music programme at Perth Concert Hall. He informed me that he had booked the Hebrides Ensemble to bring their touring programme of American music, including Ives’s Piano Trio, to Perth. Would I care to present the programme and introduce the pieces? It took place last Monday and was reviewed in The Herald by Catherine Robb from its Glasgow performance.After the phone call, the first thing I did was get on the blower to the trusty Anne McAlister of McAlister Matheson Music in Edinburgh. She tracked down a recording of the Trio, which arrived in July.The first time I listened to it I was baffled. It’s a big-boned piece of three movements, lasting about 25 minutes.The second movement Scherzo was instantly and unmistakably pure Ives. It’s a fast and furious compendium of the college marches, patriotic songs, hymn tunes, slightly militaristic marches, marching band tunes and all the wonderful slices of musical Americana that Ives loved so much and combined into gloriously wacky presentations. It’s intended to be amusing, and he labels the movement with an acronym: TSIAJ (this Scherzo is a joke).But I was bewildered by the outer movements. I could hear the long, solemn cello solo which opens the piece, builds to a peak of intensity and is taken over by the violin and subjected to similar treatment. I could hear in the finale a fantastic concoction of the purple Romanticism of Wagner and Richard Strauss with mad Ives-ian polytonalities and polyrhythms, while the piano variously meanders about in a region just beyond the edge of familiarity and pounds out two-fisted versions of hymn tunes.But I could find neither the shape nor trajectory of the music. So for the next three months, wherever I went, the Ives came too, along with my wee CD player: Saturday football coaching, Sunday afternoon music lessons, summer holidays, cooking, hanging up the washing, whatever – I just let it infiltrate.Only about a month ago I finally got it. It all knitted together, with its own peculiar, non-European logic.With a view to talking about it in public, I kept listening and thinking. And just about a fortnight ago, with the piece now totally in my system, something hit me: this stupendously original composition is a masterpiece; a complete masterpiece, from the weird beginning to the deeply nostalgic end, when the cello, calmly and serenely, sings the great hymn, Rock Of Ages.So there you are. I would suggest that music lovers who have a broad palette and a genuine curiosity should seek it out. My recording, which is robust, bright and full-on, is by the Hartley Trio and can be found on the Dal Segno label. Give it loads of time; it might get you too.

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Time to discover Charles Ives’s trio

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