The opening concert of ALL THE WRONG NOTES: CHARLES IVES AT 150 is this Sunday night (October 20) at 7:30pm in Barnes Hall. Soprano Rachel Schutz and Prof. Xak Bjerken perform a selection of works from Ives’ 114 Songs and inaugurate the latest addition to Cornell’s keyboard collection, a Broadwood piano from 1865. Beloved American pianist Gilbert Kalish ends the program with Ives’ monumental Piano Sonata No. 1.
This Sunday’s concert sets the tone for the entire festival, with performances in October and November:
In four concerts, ALL THE WRONG NOTES: CHARLES IVES AT 150 celebrates the 150th anniversary of composer, pianist, organist, actuary, and businessman Charles Ives. Largely rejected in his youth, this native son of green New England famously gained renown only later in life and is today remembered as an iconoclast of American music. Ives’ musical agenda might best be summed up by the Connecticut minister who programmed Ives over the protests of his congregation: “God gets awfully tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.” Ives was a relentless visionary yet also a traditionalist, worshiping Beethoven and turning up his nose at Ravel and Schoenberg, whose music he claimed he never heard. Described variously as “gibberish,” “impossible,” like “awfully indigestible food,” Ives’ works draw directly from European techniques and suffuses them with the spirit and sounds of early 20th-century America, quoting popular tunes, band music, revival hymns, barn dances, and ragtime, invoking memories of holidays and parades alongside references to Transcendentalist philosophy. Our four concerts this fall will showcase some of his most beloved works as well as some rarely-heard gems, offering an affectionate overview of this singular composer and his provocative contributions to classical music in the 20th century.
Concert Program
I: October 20, 7:30pm, Barnes Hall
Ives’ 150th Birthday • Gilbert Kalish, Rachel Schutz, and Xak Bjerken
Soprano Rachel Schutz and Prof. Xak Bjerken perform a selection of works from Ives’ 114 Songs and inaugurate the latest addition to Cornell’s keyboard collection, a Broadwood piano from 1865. Beloved American pianist Gilbert Kalish ends the program with Ives’ monumental Piano Sonata No. 1.
II: October 25, 7:30pm, Barnes Hall
Ives’ Violin Sonatas • KJ McDonald and Ariel Mo
Ives wrote four violin sonatas proper, in addition to a few shorter works for this instrumentation, and always liked to offer the following anecdote about them: A famous violinist (the “Professor”), while attempting to read through the first sonata, quickly became frustrated with all the rhythms and notes and said, “This cannot be played. It is not music, it makes no sense.” Violinist KJ McDonald from Boston’s New England Conservatory joins doctoral pianist Ariel Mo in this recital of the complete violin sonatas.
III: October 31, 12:30pm, Lincoln Hall B20
Music for quarter-tone piano(s) • Thomas Feng and Jack Yarbrough
This special Midday Music event features Ives’ Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos, performed by two players with one piano de-tuned by a quarter-tone. Bookending the Ives will be two solo works from Tui St. George Tucker and Georg Friedrich Haas, each played by one pianist on two pianos simultaneously. Now, how does that work?
IV: November 12, 7:30pm, Barnes Hall
Music for piano + • Trio Gaia, Xak Bjerken, Federico Ercoli, and Isaac Dorio
Our festival concludes on Nov. 12 with Ives’ rambunctious and devilish Piano Trio, performed by Boston-based Trio Gaia. Rounding out the program is Frederic Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, The Alcotts from Ives’ Concord Sonata, Decoration Day for violin and piano, and the world premiere of Double Bind, a new work for piano and electronics by doctoral composer Jasmine Morris.
