Yesterday I picked up this new disc on ECM with the 4 violin sonatas by
Charles Ives (Hansheinz Schneeberger - violin, Daniel Cholette - piano;
ECM New Series 1605).  These works, written sometime between 1900 and 1916,
are typical Ives, a weird mixture of late romatic tunes, neo classicism,
ragtime, jazz, folk songs, marches, wild fiddling and church music -
wonderfully performed and perfectly recorded.  The booklet is (for ECM)
surprisingly informative - presenting Ives own programmatic notes to
these works.  Apparently Ives wrote/worked on 7 sonatas.  The first two
disappeared or were withdrawn by Ives (though their musical material might
show up in the latter sonatas) and of the last one (no. 7) exist only
rough sketches, which leaves us with the 4 sonatas recorded here.  Funny
to read is Ives sarcastic description of how he tried to play one of his
sonatas with a professional violinist.  The comment of the violonist: "
This cannot be played!  Its awful!  Its not music!  It makes no sense!"
I think it makes some sense and is a pleasure to listen to!

Achim Breiling