ABSTRACT
Charles Ives was a uniquely American phenomenon. His early musical upbringing under the guidance of his father George combined conventional tuition in piano, harmony and counterpoint with distinctly unorthodox aural experiments. The death of George Ives in November 1884, when Charles was ten years old, had a devastating effect upon his son. Ives began sketches for his First Symphony in D minor 1895 during his second year as a student, completing the scoring in May 1898. In assembling the thematic material for the symphony, Ives again drew upon his past, with hymn tunes at the heart of each movement and popular marches and songs jostling for a place in the Allegretto. The abrupt harmonic changes in the chorale-like opening are characteristic of Ives’ fluid sense of tonality: Ives, settled firmly in New York and working in the insurance business, looked back with nostalgia in the symphony to the rural life of his birthplace Danbury, Massachusetts.
