Ives - Set of Five Take-Offs

I. THE SEEN AND UNSEEN? 2. ROUGH AND READY ET AL. 3. SONG WITHOUT (GOOD) WORDS 4. SCENE EPISODE

5. BAD RESOLUTIONS AND GOOD WAN

PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION , NEW YORK PEER MUSIKVERLAG G. , HAMBURG

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Contents Preface

Editorial Remarks

1. THE

SEEN AND UNSEEN?

2.

3. SONG WITHOUT (good) words 4.

5. BAD RESOLUTIONS and ROUGH AND READY et al

SCENE EPISODE.

GOOD WAN.

This edition has the approval of the Charles Ives Society, Inc. which is furthering and supporting the preparation of critical editions , both new and revised , of the music of Charles Ives.

The work of the Society has been made possible by grants from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a generous bequest from the late Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond.

, "

PREFACE Neither this set nor any of its parts are mentioned in Ives

it " " and its back "

" continuing as described in the

Memos unless ineluded in the " odds and

notes * - but

not continuously in the upside- down book

ends of shorter pieces. . . Some of these are much better

because pages

13J and 16J were once contiguous outside pages

work lists or in his

than they seemed at first is editorial

(Memos p. 108). The group- title

of gatherings glued together at the spine. At some time Ives

Cartoons or Take-off

cut and tore these leaves out of the book , leaving most of

take-offs " from

(1897- 1907) and " set "

from the

the

Set for Theater Orchestra

1"

the

of

on page (6) still with the spine (now miss-

1901"

(1906- 11). The order of the pieces is clearfrom the way they

ing). Ives s numbering pages (2- 4) as pages "

appear in the only surviving source , three leaves (six pages)

and Ready

from the manuscript volume I have called " Songbook

now- incomplete

B

3" of

Rough

is no argument against the above order. In the Studies

(1907- ?) he started new paginations

which was probably bound late in 1898 , after Ives had

in #4 , #5 (continued in #6- 9), and #20 (continued in #21).

graduated from Yale ,

And the amorphous " Sunrise Cadenza"

and just as soon as he had some extra

could hardly have

money from his life- insurance job. At that time he was so

been part of this set of five pieces , all complete and rounded

impatient for something that would at least feel like a book

out.

of his songs (then numbering more than 70) that he had two copyist copies and a few gatherings of music paper all

Each of the five pieces has a take-off idea , but Ives was

bound as a book (its spine and cover now missing). Ives copicd

so intensely musical that in three of them the music took

several other songs into it , the last around 1907 , but by 1899

over, and he must have been aware of falling into the kind

he was aleady using its back pages for sketching other music.

of direct melodic communication that he had meant to take off.

has incongruous alternations of

The Seen and Unseen?

In December 1906 Ives s heart was giving him anxiety,

music seen or not yet seen in 1906 (or of the coexisting seen

and it was suggested that he take a week' s vacation around

and unseen worlds?), but the unifying melody has real ma-

Christmas , and that Julian Myrick go with him. It was prob-

jesty.

ably Ives

s idea to go to Old Point Comfort , Virginia (where

pokes fun at Mendelssohn

Song Without (good) Words

Scene Episode

pretty title but with a haunting presence. The

he had gone with his brother Moss at Eastertime 1898 , by

(soon absorbed into the First Piano Sonata) suggests a stream-

the Old Dominion Steamship Line). They sailed about Satur-

of-consciousness with nervous longings focused in the hymn

day the 22nd and returned to New York around Thursday

but lie- like

Happy Day,

enough to awake self-recognition

(a study rival-

the 27th. That would have left time to revise or compose

more than funny bone. Even

these five pieces by Tuesday the 1st , I- II- IV probably from

ling Chopin s 2-against- 3 and 3-against- , with its 4-against-

earlier sketches , III probably a first draft , V some time Tues-

and 5-against- 6), shows structural integrity: embryos of the

day (the diary called " Our Book" reports that Ives spent

theme in 1- , overlapping sequences in 8-

New Year s Day at Hartford with the Twichells).

with answers in 23tion.1

Ives s use of the three leaves had begun on a right- hand page with a " Sunrise

Cadenza"

(apparently an unfinished

elaboration of the cadenza in the Trio begun in 1904 ,

Unseen?

he wrote

Then , with the book upside down ,

and Ready

Cadenza"

(on staves 12on staves 1- 6),

The Seen and he started

, augmentations

, mirror in 32- 40. Only the

Resolu-

remains a mere take-off, the " Bad" and " Good" maybe

taking off

The Seen and Unseen?

the " Good"

rounding out the set?

even taking off Ives himself

12

or 13 measures ending with the top voice trailing off alone).

On the left- hand page back of this ,

Rough and Ready

Rough

7 left over from the " Sunrise

and he would have gone right on

The grouping together of pieces so dissimilar follows Ives

string quartet "

of around 1904- 6 (Henry Cowell

named

it the " pre- 2nd quartet ), whose movements " were supposed to be related only by contrasts ing not related"

that is ,

related only by be-

(Memos p. 73). And Ives never considered

had not the next page been already sketched on. So he

any such grouping decisive, but always open to regrouping

marked the present page " " found an empty one and called

or to separate performances of the individual pieces.

==, "

p,

This edition was prepared for publication in 1977 , when

all concerned , in the wake of Ives s

100th birthday, were

.. --

,"

p,

notes added after the original version are

Rough and Ready,

shown in cue size. The original version of the last section

taking his final texts reverently as gospel. Since then , the

starting with bar 32 , can be found on page 17. The addi-

balance of regard between Ives s earlier and final versions

tions to the other pieces here seem to have been made near

has partly elarified. Though he never admitted it , his first

the time of composition.

ideas were often best , his spontaneous genius knowing its natural focus. Later on , his need for more and more disso-

For all five pieces , the text is substantially that of 1977.

nance became exaggerated , as he related dissonance to con-

The notes for

sonance as masculine to sissy. But by 1934 his eyes could

so as to play the apparently original version.

hardly last through 20 minutes of elose work without resting

Without (good) Words

(thus not always finding out if making a detail more disso-

sketch to the " ink

nant might lose a larger cohesion). In one of my first conver-

but he left the sketch so full of revisions and erased so little

sations with him in 1937 or '

that, for the long repeat , both versions exist together waiting

, I innocently used the word

simplicity : he exploded in a long tirade mostly about "eloak

for mental laziness

" intensifying to a final " GOD

SIMPLICITY!" - and had

to lie down. This tendency led

him to underestimate three dissonant chords in Unseen?

DAMN

The Seen and Rough and Ready,

(see note 2), and to overload

23- 29 (obscuring the bass) and 36- 41 (impossible to play at the intended tempo

Presto -

as

The Seen and Unseen?

suggest what to omit In the

Song

Ives transferred his interest from the copy completed" (unfortunately missing),

to be disentangled. To the

Scene Episode

his addition of the

right- hand middle voice in 3- 10 seems so coeval as to make one wonder why the sonata lacks it. The

a brief joke (Mrs. Ives once told me

Resolutions

is just

Some of the things

he said were so funny that , thinking of them , I'd burst out laughing, all by myself.

fast as possible ). For

John Kirkpatrick

* Complete editorial notes are on fie in the Ives Collection of the John Herrick Jackson Music Library, 98 Wall St. , New Haven CT 06520. Microfilms of the source material are also held in the Ives Collection; the six frames are numbered f4 77 4 - f4 779.

EDITORIAL REMARKS accents ,

Large

and wedges == brackets. Ives

, and solid ties , slurs , and wedges are I ves '

s; small accents , etc , and broken slurs are editorial. The left hand and right hand are usually kept in their own staves , exceptions indicated by

etc.

s fingering appears only in II. , m. 7 and 9. All metronomic suggestions are editorial. Diamond-shaped noteheads

in I , m. 13 are to be silently sustained. They have been added by the editor, to help give the third beat a fullness worthy of the content.

In addition to the cue size notes in II , which indicate notes added by Ives in later revisions , several spots need to be mentioned

here that were quite different in Ives s original version of II: m. 24 ,

beat 3 ,

m. 26 ,

beat 1 ,

5th 16th , l.h. :

last 16th ,

l.h.

m. 28, 2nd beoL , 5th 16Lb ,

m. 29 ,

the original version has

l.h.

1st beat , 2nd 16th , l.h.

not

not

=F , not

not

SET OF FIVE T AKE-OFFS FOR PIANO The Seen and Unseen?

Sweet and Tough

CHARLES E. IVES (Dec. !?) 1906-Jan. 1 , 1907) Edited by John Kirkpatrick

Maestoso (J = about 80)

* see editorial notes on the diamond-shaped noteheads.

I$ Copyright 1977 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION I$ Copyright 1991 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

International Copyright Secured Printed

in U.

All Rights Reserved Including the Right of Public Performance.

-- - - - - -- ---- -- --- -- -- - -- - -- - -- - ------ - - - - ---- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1. 12

8va-

--

- - - - - - - - ---

- - - - - - - - - ---

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --

Rough and Ready et al. and/or The Jumping Frog Moderato (

=about 72)

Allegretto (J = about 84)

1.

2.

I$ Copyright 1977 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION I$ Copyright 1991 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

International Copyright Secured Printed

in U.

All Rights Reserved Including the Right of Public Performance.

bass Short bass held

- --..........

- - - - - - --....

- - --................................................

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --....

- - - ---................

- - - - - - - - - ---......................................................................................

---------------------------------------------

--

8va

1\--

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1

loco

poco cresc.

..

poco dim.

I. t-

,l ..

d..

+t.

L. J

't.

*Notes added by Ives after the original version are shown in cue size.

fI"

---- --

III Song Without

(good) Words

Cantabile Adagio (J = about 66)

poco pill mosso

(J = about 84)

Copyright 1977 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION I$ Copyright 1991 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

International Copyright Secured Printed

in U.

All Rights Reserved Including the Right of Public Performance.

-- --

-- --

- - - - - - - "' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

-=

-------

poco rit

tempo primo

poco ten.

poco rit.

.. --

- - - - - - "::- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --- - " - - - - - - -

a tempo

()

()=

Scene Episode Adagio about 72)

Cantabile )1)

I$ Copyright 1977 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION I$ Copyright 1991 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

International Copyright Secured Printed

in U.

All Rights Reserved Including the Right of Public Performance.

--

Bad Resolutions and Good WAN (Jan. 1 ,

1907)

(Adagio, J = about 66)

I$ Copyright 1977 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION I$ Copyright 1991 by PEER INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

International Copyright Secured Printed

in U.

All Rights Reserved Including the Right of Public Performance.

() =

/\

the original ending (measl,res

32- 42)

, ROUGH AND READY et al r6-, Presto

preceding)

fff/\

v .

of