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Charles Ives When one thinks of Charles Ives one would I think usually conjure up musical images of dissonance, polytonality, and extreme 20th century modernism, a far cry from ancient chant. However there is a strong link to the traditions of the past even in the works of this great 20th century American composer. We know that Ives borrowed from the wealth of American folksong but there is also evidence to suggest that his musical interests and influences even extend further back then that. What, you may ask, can possibly be drawn from the music of Ives that in any way shows a relationship to plainsong? Well, the answer is twofold. Before we explore the specifics let me just say that influences can be implied as well as overt. For instance, we may not find an exact quotation of Gregorian chant in Ives’ music but does that mean that the influence don’t exist, perhaps not. The influences of many of the great European romantic and classical composers is a given in Ives’ music. Associations have been made to Dvořák, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, and he has used direct quotes from Beethoven, Bach, and Wagner in his various works. In her article, Medieval and Renaissance Techniques in the Music of Charles Ives: Horatio at the Bridge? The author Ann Besser Scott suggests that Ives in fact was heavily influenced in his actual compositional techniques by the early Medieval and Renaissance composers who as we know were essentially still working with chant and chant-based melody. These influences were she says inspired in Ives when as a student at Yale he attended lectures on early polyphonic music given by Horatio Parker. “…various sorts of stratified or layered textures often found in Ives’s music. The effect of layering results from a variety of means, including polytonality (as in the “Variations on America”); the superposition of markedly contrasting harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic styles (as in “The Unanswered Question”); and hierarchal orderings of multiple diverse elements, ranging from ostinato backgrounds to sharply profiled foreground themes (as in “Central Park In The Dark”). But we associate one technique in particular with Ives; the contrapuntal combination of different melodies (as in “Putnam’s Camp”). This kind of layered texture, created by the stacking of equal but heterogeneous elements into an aggregate, is closely related to that found in the thirteenth century motet, a genre featuring the successive addition of 20 one or more melodies to a preexistent tenor.” (Scott. 1999. 448-489) Herein then lies the first of the two ways in which Ives pays tribute to ancient music, in his handling of various voices using a kind of layering approach. One sees this approach in all of the earliest polyphonic music. The works of Léonin and Pérotin immediately come to mind as well as that of Tallis. Long before reading Scott’s article I had often speculated on how there are striking similarities in the way music was arranged and composed in the 11-14th centuries, this layering of independent voices (chants or chant derived), and the way music is now composed using sequencing programs and computers. Over and over we see the past becoming the future. Of course this is not a direct link to chant per se but in these earliest days of polyphonic music chant was still very much the “stuff” of which these compositions is comprised. She goes on to illustrate how Ives’s orchestrating techniques parallel earlier polyphonic efforts giving numerous musical examples she then make this rather interesting observation: “Again, medieval and Renaissance music provides a precedent: the use of secular tunes as the structural foundation for sacred motets and masses. Is Ives’s use of, say, “Camptown Races” to generate much of the Second Symphony’s final movement any more stylistically irreverent than Dufay’s use of Se la face ay pale or L’homme armé as the structural basis of a mass setting?” (Scott. 1999. 454) This I think is a rather interesting observation, perhaps there is not much different between the composers of then and those that engage the craft today? Ives was fond of voicing chords in fourths and open fifths; again this is a sonority we associate with the early polyphonic chant arrangements or organum. It seems reasonable to suspect Ives’s interest in early music may very well have been piqued by the lectures by Parker that he attended. Luckily the notes from these lectures exist in tact today and from them we can make some substantial deductions. “ he (Parker) actually devoted fully half of the year to music up to the time of Palestrina. Beginning with a discussion of ancient and non-western musics, Parker moved on to Greek and church modes; the work of such medieval theorists as Hucbald, Guido d’Arezzo, Marchetto and Franco of Cologne; music of the troubadors and 21 Minnesingers; the so-called Netherlands school, including Dufay, Ockegham, Josquin, and Willaert; and late sixteenth composers, such as Palestrina, Lasso, and Byrd. (Scott. 1999. 459) I personally am not at all surprised that Ives’s had been exposed to this sort of knowledge but it is an interesting fact that we can indeed document that he did study this early music. In fact I’d venture to guess that probably most or not al of the important composers while perhaps not consciously aware of the influence that the first 10 centuries of Western music had on their work that on some level it certainly is present. The Parker notes also illustrate that he in fact used chants, organum, and the music of Josquin and others as actual musical examples in the teaching of this course. The most interesting snippet from these notes from Parker’s lectures, at least in-so- far as this paper is concerned, has to be this one: “Parker acknowledges that “Gregorian chant is the central point from which all the older compositions of the Catholic Church proceeded and upon which they were founded. The classic forms of the old masses, motets, etc. including the works of Palestrina and his school, sprang from the Gregorian chant and owed their very existence to it.” (Scott. 1999. 465) I couldn’t have found a more supportive paragraph for the premise of this paper had I bought and paid for it! There in black and white for all to read this one concise paragraph sums up the totality of my thoughts and suppositions since my initial involvement with this study some 8 months or so ago. If he can extend this train of influence to Palestrina well then it is accepted knowledge that from Palestrina comes Baroque music and beyond I think we can without worry extend that lineage to the present time for the continuum is there, it is all part of one central thread that thread being the ancient chant. In a very real sense all music from ancient Greece where the basic musical system was invented, to Ives is one continuous flow or one tradition from which all the various styles emanate. Scott shows us quite clearly how some of unconventional (for the time) techniques can be traced to early music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and how he probably discovered these techniques as a result of the lectures he attended in Parker’s classroom. 22 Earlier I mentioned that there was two ways in which Ives’s works may have been influenced by early Western forms; let’s look at the second now. We’ve already examined how Bach used plainsong as the basis for his harmonized chorales, well Scott raises the point that since Ives was indeed employed as a church organist at various times in his life, (actually the only time he actually made a living in music was as a young man playing the organ in various churches), these experiencee as a church organist were indeed an influence on his music writing. Peter J. Burkholder wrote an entire article on this very topic which he titled; The Organist in Ives. From that article we find this interesting paragraph: The effects on Ives’s music of his long experience with the organ were profound and wide-ranging. An examination of music he played, music he composed for or with the organ, and pieces he adapted from his own organ works demonstrates that he was deeply influenced both by his practical knowledge as an organist and by the repertory he performed. This influence worked through habits and ways of thinking native to church organists of his time and through individual traits of particular pieces he played. It is revealed in turn through a surprising variety of features characteristic of his music, including its relation to improvisation, difficulty of execution, employment of novel sounds to represent extramusical events, approach to orchestration, prominent textural and dynamic contrasts, spatial effects, innovative harmonies, mixture of classical and vernacular traditions, polytonality, use of fugue and pedal point, frequent borrowing of hymn tunes, and use of cumulative form. Although these features may see to have little in common, in each Ives extends elements from the tradition of organ music. Even what seems most radically new has roots.” (Burkholder. 2002. 254.) So Ives’s familiarity and time spent with the organ as a working organist influenced his writing but is this really supportive of the premise that chant was a major influence as well? I speculate that yes it does indeed imply that very thing due to the strong chant influence that chant had on that champion composer of music for organ, J.S. Bach. This has already been shown in the earlier section on Bach in this paper. Ives was a skillful organist even in his teens, as shown by his practice regimen, repertory, and youthful success. A childhood acquaintance later recalled that he 23 was “a kind of boy prodigy” as an organist. By age thirteen, he was studying Bach’s Tocatta, Adagio, and fugue in C Major, BWV 564, renowned for it’s long and difficult passages for pedals.” (Burkholder. 2002. 264.) Still is there any concrete evidence that at any time Ives was a student of Bach’s chorales for these indeed are the pieces we know to have a direct connection to chant. “ He (Ives) was influenced by characteristics in the music he played that go the organ as a n instrument and relate to it’s literature: fugue, pedal point, and elaboration of hymns (often chant derived.) These standard elements of the organ repertory led Ives in new directions, including the mixture of classical and vernacular traditions, polytonality, harmonic experimentation, and formal innovation.” (Burkholder. 2002. 289.) The passing down of tradition is something we see throughout the history of Western art music and even though time may tend to blur the associations they nevertheless do exist. Still there is no clear-cut evidence that Ives had anything more then casual involvement with the Bach harmonized chant or chorales. “it is unlikely that Ives played Bach chorale settings I his work as a church organist; they were not standard fare in the churches for which he played, and none was included in the two volumes of Bach organ music he owned. But he may have encountered some in his studies at Yale, in Parker’s lectures on music history or in the counterpoint class he took as a junior, which included “accompanying chorales and canti firmi.” Whatever Ives’s experience with Bach chorale settings, he knew organ music by nineteenth-century composers who used methods similar to Bach and to his later cumulative-form movements. (Burkholder. 2002. 289.) It is valid then, I think, to surmise that on some level Ives’s music was certainly influenced by early chant both through his study in his student years with Horatio Parker and through his professional experiences as a church organist. 24