Charles Ives on the Nature of Experience: The Compositional Designs and Aesthetic Programs of PDF
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CCiittyy UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff NNeeww YYoorrkk ((CCUUNNYY)) CCUUNNYY AAccaaddeemmiicc WWoorrkkss Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 6-2016 CChhaarrlleess IIvveess oonn tthhee NNaattuurree ooff EExxppeerriieennccee:: TThhee CCoommppoossiittiioonnaall DDeessiiggnnss aanndd AAeesstthheettiicc PPrrooggrraammss ooff TThhrreeee OOrrcchheessttrraall WWoorrkkss Ashleé Michele Miller Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit you? Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1295 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] CHARLES IVES ON THE NATURE OF EXPERIENCE: THE COMPOSITIONAL DESIGN AND AESTHETIC PROGRAMS OF THREE ORCHESTRAL WORKS by ASHLEÉ MICHELE MILLER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctoral of Musical Arts, The City University of New York. 2016 ©2016 ASHLEÉ MICHELE MILLER All Rights Reserved ii CHARLES IVES ON THE NATURE OF EXPERIENCE: THE COMPOSITIONAL DESIGN AND AESTHETIC PROGRAMS OF THREE ORCHESTRAL WORKS by ASHLEÉ MICHELE MILLER This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Music to satisfy the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts. _____Ashleé Michele Miller_________ ________________ ___________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee ____________Dr. Norman Carey__________ ________________ ___________________________________________ Date Executive Officer _____________Dr. Norman Carey_________ Stephen Blum (Advisor)_____________________ Philip Lambert (First-Reader)_________________ Ursula Oppens_____________________________ Supervisory Committee iii ABSTRACT Charles Ives on the Nature of Experience: The Compositional Designs and Aesthetic Programs of Three Orchestral Works by Ashleé Michele Miller Advisor: Stephen Blum Charles Ives on the Nature of Experience: The Compositional Designs and Aesthetic Programs of Three Orchestral Works explores the hypothesis that Ives set in motion in many of his compositions a juxtaposition of temporal process (such as polyrhythm and polymeter) with the aim of exploiting a person’s innate abilities to entrain. Ives believed participants engaged in a juxtaposition of temporal processes are able to form personalized experiences by choosing which elements to attend to. I present three analyses to explore the potential for multiple entrainment experiences in three works by Ives: The Unanswered Question, Central Park in the Dark, and the Fourth Symphony. Each composition contains a juxtaposition of temporal processes and a written program addressing the nature of human experience. I examine each work’s compositional design and written program to find an underlying process (“aesthetic program”) that is realized in both musical and extra-musical forms. Chapter 2, “Ives’s Views and Approaches to Musical Time,” outlines Ives’s performance approach to polyrhythms and connects his performance practice with current studies on polyrhythmic performance. Ives considered musical time as being built on a fluid foundation that iv is continually affected by experience. I connect this approach with current musical theories that consider experience a critical component in the unfolding of musical time: Christopher Hasty’s theory of projection and Mari Reiss Jones’s concept of subjective generators. Ives referred to many of his compositions as “Pictures in Sounds.” Chapter 3 “Pictures in Sounds” lists these compositions and explores the underlying aesthetic objective in this sub- category in Ives’s oeuvre. I claim that these musical illustrations are perceptual images comprised of the participant’s perceptual anticipations while entraining in the musical experience. As participants engage in a juxtaposition of temporal processes, their choices while listening and/or performing shape and define their individual experiences, resulting in individual “views.” As many researchers have noted, Ives was interested in cycles as a medium of unification. The term “cycles” in music however has typically referred to imbedded or repetitive structures. In Chapter 4 (“Cycles Revised”), I treat the use of “cycles” as a process and connect Ives’s use of the term to Ulric Neisser’s concept of “perceptual cycles.” Both authors considered cycles and perception as being continually evolving processes rooted in the inseparable variable of experience. I introduce the concept of cyclic reference units (CRU), which are continual musical processes that guarantee a juxtaposition of temporal processes, heard or unheard. The CRU creates a rhythmic density in Ives’s music that allows listeners and performers to actively choose between different temporal processes inherent in the work or attune to an internal process in the creation of a composite view. I assert that this rhythmic density in Ives’s music reverberates into the composition’s musical form and continuity by enabling participants to ultimately choose what is in the foreground, middle ground, and background. Ives’s compositions subsequently v take many forms and facilitate a variety of meanings, creating musical experiences that ultimately embrace diversity and individuals’ rights to choose—paradigms at the heart of Transcendental principles and American values. vi For Papa vii Preface I first became acquainted with Charles Ives’s music during my high school years at the North Carolina School of the Arts. As is typical in music appreciation classes, Ives was part of a large group of American composers to be introduced during a quick two-hour lecture. After giving a brief biographical description, our professor, Dr. Irna Priore, had chosen one piece from Ives’s oeuvre to play for the class: an orchestration of General William Booth Enters Into Heaven recently recorded by Michael Tilson Thomas with the San Francisco Symphony. This recording became my first encounter with Ives’s music and an experience that would lead to my doctoral thesis less than a decade later. Sitting in class, I listened to the recording, noting the soft approach of the orchestra’s march as if the ensemble were approaching from a distance. A choir suddenly interjected with the phrase, “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” As someone who grew up in a devout Southern Baptist family, I instantly recognized the phrase, which comes from Elisha Hoffman’s hymn of the same name. But there was something strikingly different about encountering the hymn in Ives’s composition than in my previous experiences. In Ives’s work, the phrase is set among clashing harmonies and echoed in a brash tone by the solo baritone. This experience was in stark juxtaposition with my childhood memories, which recalled the hymn in sentimental settings with feelings of reverence and seriousness—experiences engrained in Sunday school. This juxtaposition aroused feelings of humor. And as the singers shouted a sarcastic “Hallelujah!” I started laughing. I began identifying more musical fragments intermixed in Ives’s composition and became increasingly astounded by the ways Ives layered and used these hymns. At one point, a distant viii trombone intoned the “There is a Fountain” while the singers sang (and went) “’round and ’round.” I found it hard to listen to both events because the tunes seemed to be moving simultaneously at different speeds. The juxtaposition of both materials created a dizzying experience that would eventually fade and break with cleverly punctuated silences and the phrase “yet, in an instant.” In the work’s final moments, the singers and instrumentalists unexpectedly engaged in a sentimental rendition of the tune “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” This final presence of the tune was more in line with my childhood memories and experiences. The phrase’s sudden transformation, from a cynical chant to a tender intoning, created a contrast that could be easily recognized by all. More interestingly, this musical realization seemed to acknowledge the juxtaposition I had experienced earlier in the work as I acquainted my previous experiences with current ones. Seven years later, I had similar a experience while listening to the last movement of Ives’s Fourth Symphony in Professor Stephen Blum’s doctoral seminar at The Graduate Center, CUNY. My colleagues and I huddled around the new critical edition while another Michael Tilson Thomas recording filled the room. This time, I could clearly see the layering of various materials in the large blue-bound score. As I listened, my ears began to pick up familiar tunes and begin to switch between them, feeling each melody moving at its own speed. Then an unexpected presence and tune appeared in the final moments of the piece; a choir suddenly entered with a familiar hymn that seemed to coalesce the movement’s large juxtaposition into a communal chant. As I described my experience to the class, Professor Blum asked me to name the hymn. I quickly sang the melody but mislabeled the hymn as “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” ix
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