CrossCurrents: Ives 150 - Philharmonic Orchestra

• Daniele Rosina conductor

Charles Ives’ music pushed the boundaries in its time and still feels fresh today. Posed time and again by a lone trumpeter, The Unanswered Question is asked to a seemingly unhearing – or uncaring – orchestra on stage. Ives melds philosophy with sound to create an uneasy, contemplative piece that leaves the listener deep in thought.

At the time that Mahler was penning his Fifth Symphony and Debussy was writing La Mer, Ives created his Second Symphony – an ocean and worlds apart from his contemporaries. The soundworld Ives creates is rich and luxurious, struck through with veins of musical influences as diverse as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the American popular music of his time. Vaughan Williams reaches back five centuries, twisting the theme by Thomas Tallis through time, echoing through the ages in one of the most majestic works for double string orchestra.

• Ives The Unanswered Question
• Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
• Ives Symphony No.2