I'll play advocate's devil on this one; & say that i actually consider
the Ives' performances on this set (not the Ruggles or the Seeger, which
respond perfectly to von Dohnanyi & the Clevelanders' approach) to be
conceptually poor; probably because von D (normally such a sure guide
in the 20th century literature) pulls a Boulez on this one, & instead
of viewing Ives as the maverick romantic that he is assumes that he's
some kind of USAmerican Schoenberg prototype.

Reviewing the classic _From Hanover Square North, at the End of a Tragic
Day, the Voices of the People Again Arose_ (possibly the finest single
movement Ives ever wrote) from the 2nd Orchestral Set illustrates the
problem: where most performances - for a mixture of technical or artistic
reasons - end up with a surging wash of sound from which the great
tub-thumbing hymn emerges as the one big unifying voice.  I truly believe
that this was the effect that Ives was searching for; not the sound of the
music which he physically wrote.

We all know that famous quote of Ives, usually quoted out of context:
what the _ has the sound got to do with music? (the lack of context misses
the point that Ives is arguing this only if the ideas behind the music are
right; & the entire Essays Before a Sonata - from which the quote comes -
is Ives's attempt to define what good ideas for music actually are); but
that's all this recording gives you: a pitiless web of individual voices,
each as expertly delineated as they are (to my ears, at least) irrelevantly
clear, within which the hymn is just a single strand...  the result is a
weaker overall impact from the big finale; & - i strongly suspect - a
distinct miscommunication of Ives's transcendental popularist intention.

Similar problems of gratuitous clarity within the orchestral texture
mark/mar (depending on your perspective) the other five movements; with
the classic _Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut_ particularly feeling
soulessly precise in this reading.

Not as wild a case of are-you-sure-we're-really-on-pg26? as the East German
Holidays symphony which was available on Berlin Classics (a fascinating
disc if you can still find it); but enough of an ambiguity that our
different tastes should be acknowledged, i guess.

All the best,
Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>