The "Concord" Sonata

In the years 1909 and 1910 Ives composed the greater portion of one of his most important works, the Second Pianoforte Sonata, sub-titled Concord, Mass., 1840 – 1860. The last movement was completed in 1915. The sonata consists of four movements: "Emerson," "Haw-thorne," "The Alcotts," "Thoreau." John Kirkpatrick, the American pianist who first overcame the tremendous difficulties of this work, has called it "an immense four-movement impressionist symphony for piano." It is indeed of symphonic proportions, and we are not surprised to learn that the first movement is based on an uncompleted score of a concerto for piano and orchestra, while the third movement uses material taken from an orchestral overture titled Orchard House. The first edition of the Concord Sonata was privately printed in the fall of 1919 and appeared together with six Essays before a Sonata written by the composer. The volume bore the following dedication: "These prefatory essays were written by the composer for those who can't stand his music – and the music for those who can't stand his essays; to those who can't stand either, the whole is respectfully dedicated." Summarizing the intent of the sonata, Ives wrote:

The whole is an attempt to present one person's impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Mass., of over half a century ago. This is undertaken in impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts, and a Scherzo supposed to reflect the lighter quality which is often found in the fantastic side of Hawthorne. The first and last movements do not aim to give any programs of the life or of any particular work of either Emerson or Thoreau but rather composite pictures or impressions.

In the foregoing passage, Ives appears as a self-proclaimed impressionist.

Ives sees Emerson as "America's deepest explorer of the spiritual immensities." From the prefatory essay on Emerson, the following excerpt may serve to establish the spiritual climate of the sonata's first movement:

We see him standing on a summit, at the door of the infinite where many men do not dare to climb, peering into the mysteries of life, contemplating the eternities, hurling back whatever he discovers there – no+ thunderbolts, for us to grasp, if we can, and translate, now placing quietly, even tenderly, in our hands, things that we may see without effort.

In addition to the prefatory essays, Ives includes numerous notes on the interpretation of the sonata,which reveal much about the composer as well as the music. In his first note on the Emerson movement, Ives applies his theory of "musical relativism," based on variable subjective factors:

Throughout this movement, and to some extent in the others, there are many passages not to be too evenly played and in which the tempo is not precise or static; it varies usually with the mood of the day, as well as that of Emerson, the other Concord bards, and the player. A metronome cannot measure Emerson's mind and over-soul, any more than the old Concord Steeple Bell could.... The same essay or poem of Emerson may bring a slightly different feeling when read at sunrise than when read at sunset.

While refusing to identify the music with any specific passages in Emerson's writings, the composer does indicate that certain sections of the music are associated with the poetry and others with the prose. At one point the entrance of an abrupt dissonance, marked fortissimo, is described as depicting "one of Emerson's sudden calls for a Transcendental Journey." Three pages later the performer is instructed to hit a certain formidable chord "in as strong md hard a way as possible, almost as though the Mountains of the Universe were shouting, as all of humanity rises to behold the 'Massive Eternities' and the 'Spiritual Immensities.' " Here is this passage:

After the dramatic climax of this call to a "Transcendental Journey," there follows a meditative section leading to a mystical ending in which the upper notes in the trebles cleff (played by the left hand, pianissimo) are supposed "to reflect the overtones of the soul of humanity and as they rise away almost inaudibly to the Ultimate Destiny."
Concerning the second movement, a Scherzo, the composer tells us that the music makes no attempt to reflect the darker side of Hawthorne's genius, obsessed by the relentlessness of guilt:

This fundamental part of Hawthorne is not attempted in our music .. which is but an «extended fragment» trying to suggest some of his wilder, fantastical adventures into the half-childlike, half-fairylike phantasmal realms. It may have something to do with the children s excitement on that «frosty Berkshire morning, and the frost on the enchanted hall window" or something to do with "Feathertop," the "Scarecrow," and his "Looking Glass" and the little demons dancing around his pipe bowl; or something to do with the old hymn tune that haunts the old church and sings only to those in the churchyard, to protect them from secular noises, as when the circus parade comes down Main Street; or something to do with the concert at the Stamford camp meeting, or the "Slave's Shuffle"; or something to do with the Concord he-nymph, or the "Seven Vagabonds" or "Circe's Palace," or something else in the wonderbook – not something that happens, but the way something happens; or something personal, which tries to be "national" suddenly at twilight, and universal suddenly at midnight; or something about the ghost of a man who never lived, or about something that never will happen, or something else that is not.

Here we meet several of the favorite Ivesian themes: the old hymn tune, the camp meeting, the circus parade. In treating the "phantas-mal" aspects of Hawthorne's world, Ives avoids the merely quaint or fanciful. When he evokes a circus parade it is a real one, with all its gaudy vulgarity. His brass band blares in competition with the local Drum Corps marching along Main Street, and at one point in the score (the composer tells us), the Drum Corps "gets the best of the Band – for a moment." Another realistic touch is when certain notes "are hit hard by the left hand, as a trombone would sometimes call the Old Cornet Band to march."
There are other pure Ivesian touches in this Scherzo. When the old hymn tune is first heard it follows a furious arpeggio passage culminating in a chord marked ffff. The composer directs that "The first chord in the Hymn (ppp) is to be played before the ffff chord held with the right foot pedal is stopped – as a Hymn is sometimes heard over a distant hill just after a heavy storm. ' A little later he remarks: "Here the Hymn for a moment is slightly held up by a Friendly Ghost in the Church Yard."
The Scherzo is marked to be played "Very fast." Toward the end there is the direction, "From here on, as fast as possible," then "Rush it," and finally, "Faster if possible"! The final section Ives refers to as the "call of the cloud breakers." The hymn tune appears, very softly and slowly, as an echo, just before the final, up-rushing chord that brings the Scherzo to a close.
In connection with the third movement of the Concord Sonata, "The Alcotts," the composer has written about the spirit and aspect of Concord village, and about Orchard House, the family home where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women and where her father philosophized:

Concord village, itself, reminds one of that common virtue lying at the height and root of the Concord divinities. As one walks down the broad-arched street, passing the white house of Emerson – ascetic guard of a former prophetic beauty – he comes presently beneath the old elms overspreading the Alcott house. It seems to stand as a kind of homely but beautiful witness of Concord's common virtue – it seems to bear a consciousness that its past is living, that the "mosses of the Old Manse" and the hickories of Walden are not far away. Here is the home of the "Marches" – all pervaded with the trials and happiness of the family and telling, in a simple way, the story of "the richness of not having."... And there is the little old spinet-piano Sophia Thoreau gave to the Alcott children, on which Beth played old Scotch airs and played at the Fifth Symphony....
We dare not attempt to follow the philosophic raptures of Bronson Alcott... And so we won't try to reconcile the music sketch of the Alcotts with much besides the memory of that home under the elms – the Scotch songs and the family hymns that were sung at the end of each day – though there may be an attempt to catch something of that common sentiment .. a strength of hope that never gives way to despair – a conviction in the power of the common soul which, when all is said and done, may be as typical as any theme of Concord and its transcendentalists.

"The Alcotts" is the shortest and the least difficult of the four movements of the Concord Sonata. The composer has provided all the clues that are needed for its understanding: the simplicity of the old home, the family hymns, the Scotch songs, and the reminiscences of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Remember, however, that the latter transcend the amateurish attempts of Beth Alcott at the spinet-piano, and are transmuted into the image of the Concord bards "pound-ing away at the immensities with a Beethoven-like sublimity."
For the final movement of his sonata, "Thoreau," the composer has given us a more detailed "program" than for the other movements. This section might have been subtitled "A Day at Walden." In his synopsis Ives does not specifically correlate the verbal description with the corresponding passages in the score. In giving the composer's synopsis below, I have taken the liberty of inserting musical illustrations that correspond to the scenes or moods described in the commentary.

And if there shall be a program let it follow his [Thoreau's] thought on an autumn day of Indian summer at Walden – a shadow of a thought at first, colored by the mist and haze over the pond:

Low anchored cloud,
Fountain head and
Source of rivers .
Dew cloth, dream drapery –
Drifting meadow of the air...

but this is momentary; the beauty of the day moves him to a certain restlessness – to aspirations more specific – an eagerness for outward action, but through it all he is conscious that it is not in keeping with the mood for this "Day." As the mists rise, there comes a clearer thought more traditionaI than the first, a meditation more calm.

As he stands on the side of the pleasant hill of pines and hickories in front of his cabin, he is still disturbed by a restlessness and goes down the white-pebbled and sandy eastern shore, but it seems not to lead him where the thought suggests – he climbs along the "bolder northern" and "western shore, with deep bays indented," and now along the railroad track, "where the Aeolian harp plays." But his eagerness throws him into the lithe, springy step of the specie hunter – the naturalist – he is still aware of a restlessness; with these faster steps his rhythm is of a shorter span – it is still not the tempo of Nature, it does not bear the mood that the genius of the day calls for, it is too specific, its nature is too external, the introspection too buoyant, and he knows now that he must let Nature flow through him and slowly; he releases his more personal desires to her broader rhythm, conscious that this blends more and more with the harmony of her solitude; it tells him that his search for freedom on that day, at least, lies in his submission to her, for Nature is as relentless as she is benignant. He remains in this mood and while outwardly still, he seems to move with the slow, almost monotonous swaying beat of this autumnal day.

He is more contented with a "homely burden," and is more assured of "the broad margin of his life; he sits in his sunny doorway... rapt in revery ... amidst goldenrod, sandcherry, and sumach... in undisturbed solitude." At times the more definite personal strivings for the ideal freedom, the former more active speculations come over him, as if he would trace a certain intensity even in his submission. "He grew in those seasons like corn in the night and they were better than any works of the hands. They were not time subtracted from his life but so much over and above the usual allowance." He realized "what the Orientals meant by contemplation and forsaking of works."... "The evening train has gone by,' and "all the restless world with it. The fishes in the pond no longer feel its rumbling and he is more alone than ever..." His meditations are interrupted only by the faint sound of the Concord belltis prayer-meeting night in the village – "a melody, as it were, imported into the wilderness... At a distance over the woods the sound acquires a certain vibratory hum as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept... A vibration of the universal lyre."... Part of the echo may be "The voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by the wood nymph." It is darker, the poet's flute is heard out over the pond and Walden hears the swan song of that "Day" and faintly echoes.

[In these final pages, Ives has written out a part for the flute; but if no flute is used, he directs that the piano shall play the melody given in the small notes. He adds, however, that "Thoreau much prefers to hear the flute over Walden."]

Is it a transcendental tune of Concord? 'Tis an evening when the "whole body is one sense." .. and before ending his day he looks out over the clear, crystalline water of the pond and catches a glimpse of the shadow-thought he saw in the morning's mist and haze – he knows that by his final submission, he possesses the "Free-dom of the Night." He goes up the "pleasant hillside of pines, hickories," and moonlight, to his cabin, "with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself."

Throughout this movement there are no key signatures, no time signatures, and no bar lines. But this does not mean that Ives subscribes to a principle of musical "anarchy," or that his musical discourse is merely "rhapsodic," lacking in formal cohesion. Obviously, he does not adhere to conventional form, but that is only one kind of form. In this connection it is well to remember that Ives called this work a "sonata" only because he could not think of a better name for it. He did not propose to write a composition in conventional sonata form. The Concord Sonata has organic form, based on thematic unity, structural parallelism, motival development, repetition, and variation. It also has psychological form. it follows the curves of emotion and feeling, rising to climaxes and falling to quieter moods, according to a controlled design.
In the "Emerson" and "Hawthorne" movements, Ives occasionally uses time signatures, and therefore bar lines. In "The Alcotts" he uses a key signature in some sections, as well as time signatures. Ives is not a doctrinaire iconoclast. His object is musical expression. He will use conventional devices and commonplace materials when they suit his expressive purpose, and he will discard them when they hamper that purpose. Whatever material he employs, and whatever devices he uses, whether conventional or unconventional, we may be certain that a genuinely creative mind is at work. In the "Hawthorne" movement of the Concord Sonata, certain clusters of notes have to be played by using a strip of board about fifteen inches long, "heavy enough to press the keys down without striking." This is the effect that Ives felt he needed to suggest Hawthorne's "Celestial Railroad," and he adopted the only practical means to obtain that eAect. Such a device is the result not of modernistic eccentricity but of Yankee ingenuity.