Here is a response from Ives scholar David Porter.

   Ed Zubrow writes:

   >I hope that Bernard Gregoire (and others in the Boston area) were
   >listening to Christopher Lydon on WBUR yesterday.  In another of his
   >excellent music shows he interviewed a pianist (Berman?) who has just
   >released a CD with rare Ives' works.

   I'd be very interested to know which Ives works -- and what editions
   were included on this CD.  You may or may not know that there are some
   good and some very bad editions of Ives' piano works floating around.

   There is a new critical edition of Study #9, but it was made without
   consulting the original versions of the music, which are found in the
   "Emerson" Piano Concerto, hence it still has significant textural
   errors.  I have edited this piece as well as Studies #2 and [11], and
   have the MSS for all the Studies.  Alan Mandel made clear copies of most
   of them in the late 1960s but these do not circulate as far a I know.

   [I was in contact with Alan Mandel about these in the 1980's.  He said
   they were mostly in a "shorthand" of his, decipherable only by him.
   Dick Hihn]

   Thomas Brodhead has prepared the critical edition of the original
   (1920s) version of the "Four Transcritpions from 'Emerson'" and have
   supplemented his work by editing the interpolated cadenzas added to the
   Transcriptions in the 1930s from the original Concerto sketches (as Ives
   recorded them in 1933 and 1938).  Tom has also edited the piano-phantasy
   "The Celestial Railroad."

   cri plans to release a CD with over an hour of Ives' own recordings from
   the 1930s and 1940s some time this year.  Some of this was on the 1974
   5-LP Columbia box set, but this CD will include Ives' complete extant
   recordings.

   >Also on the show was Jan Swafford, author of an Ives' biography.

   [I am regularly in touch with Jan, who thanks you for your comments -
   Dick Hihn]

   I know Jan Swafford and have his excellent bio.  We appeared on a panel
   together back in October in Cleveland following the world premiere of
   the "Emerson" Concerto.

   >As someone who is struggling to get his arms around Ives' work
   >(with help from Bernard and others on the list) I found a few themes
   >that emerged from the broadcast very interesting.
   >1.  Ives' father was US Grant's favorite bandmaster.

   The story is that Lincoln and Grant were touring the regiment in which
   George Ives (age 19) was the bandmaster.  Lincoln commented that it was
   "a good band." Grant replied that it was reputedly "the best in the
   Army," but he couldn't tell, since he only knew two tunes -- "one is
   Yankee Doodle, and the other isn't."

   >When he came upon the young boy banging on the piano with his fists
   >he did not "correct" him but, rather, encouraged him.

   Actually, Charles Ives started "piano-drumming" because the neighbors
   wished he would practice his drum parts on the piano and not on the
   drum, and he got tired of using triads for the snare and bass drum
   parts, and developed some dissonant chords on his own.  George
   encouraged him to work something out on these lines but to be aware
   of what he was doing, musically, and why he was doing it.

   >Throughout his youth Ives was encouraged to consider things as he heard
   >them, not as they were "meant to be."

   Ives reports that his father told him, "When you can write a proper
   fugue, and do it well, then it will be time to write an improper fugue,
   and do it well." He also told his son, "If a man knows more about a
   horse than he knows about heaven, he ought to stick to the horse, and
   maybe the horse will carry him to heaven." And speaking of horses, he
   advised his son to "Tell [Horatio] Parker" [Ives' music instructor at
   Yale] "that not every dissonance has to resolve, just as not every horse
   has to have its tail bobbed just because it's the prevailing fashion."

   >3.  Mahler returned from America to Europe having been fascinated by
   >an Ives' symphony score (I'm sorry I didn't catch which one).

   It was the final copyist's copy of the Third Symphony.  Ives also
   gave his own ink copies of the Third and Second Symphonies to Walter
   Damrosch, who succeeded Mahler at the NYPO, but Damrosch thought them
   inconsequential and "lost" them.  Damrosch had read through parts of
   Ives' First Symphony the year before (1910) and thought it too hard to
   play.  For all this Ives nicknamed him "Wally Mollycoddle God Damrosch."

   >5.  Lastly, I was intrigued by the story of one actual event that
   >found its way into his music.  On some holiday two bands started from
   >opposite ends of the main street in town.  They marched towards each
   >other playing different songs.  They crossed and then marched away
   >from each other still playing their own separate marches.

   Ken Singleton tells that this "battle of the bands" was a regular thing
   during George Ives' days as one of several Danbury town bandmasters, not
   just one isolated event.  Not only were there two "main" bands, there
   were also small groups of musicians placed in balconies, etc., with
   their own parts, excerpts of the music played by the main groups.
   Moving around through the village square gave the listeners different
   impressions of the music depending on which group they were closest to.

   Thanks for the post.

   --David Porter
   (Editorial Coordinator for The Charles Ives Society)

Dick Hihn