New Millennium Strings

Charles Ives (1874-1954)

The Unanswered Question

Charles Ives was born on October 20, 1874 in Danbury, Connecticut. His father, George, who had been the youngest Union bandmaster during the civil War, provided him with his early musical training. George Ives gave his son an untraditional view of tonality and rhythm. With his father's encouragement and unorthodox musical tutelage, Charles began to compose at an early age. Eventually he was accepted to Yale and graduated in 1898. While at Yale, he studied composition with Heratio Parker, and at the same time earned a living as a church organist at the Centre Church in New Haven, from 1894-1898.

In 1907 Ives and his good friend Julian Myrick decided to start an insurance company. The friendship and business partnership flourished. Today the company is known as Mutual of New York. Ives' innovative selling strategies, coupled with his earnest concern for people, founded the philosophy of the original company. Known as a humanitarian, Ives had a personal reputation for kindness. Once during the Depression, an agent was having no luck selling, and unless you were selling, you made no money. Ives walked over to the man's desk and observed his frustration. He asked to see his wallet, anticipating that it would be empty. He gave him fifty dollars, much to the shock of the employee, and told him that the money was not an IOU. Ives remarked that no one could be expected to sell anything if tey did not have money in their own wallet.

Although Ives was a successful businessman, he continued to compose. Most of his music was written between 1896 and 1916. Throughout his earlier career Ives did not receive much recognition for his work. He was a very private person and shared his compositions with only select colleagues. Even his wife Harmony, whom he married in 1908, was not aware of many of his compositions. Finally in 1947, forty years after he had written his Third Symphony, Ives received the Pulitzer Prize. He promptly gave away the $500 award.

In 1906 Ives composed two pieces: I. A Contemplation of a Serious Matter "or the Unanswered Perennial Question" and II. A Contemplation of Nothing Serious or "Central Park in the Dark in the Good Old Summertime". The pieces are related as opposites.

The Unanswered Question was a bold composition for its time. The sense of meter, as was common to all Western music, was eliminated. At the beginning of the piece, the pulse is nearly imperceptible because of the slow tempo. It is played by the strings and is heard softly as an unobtrusive background. Ives suggested that the strings represent the "druids, who say and see nothing." The role of the solo trumpet is to ask "the perennial question" and it is heard as a plaintive, freely played triplet figure. The winds illustrate "the fighting answerers" who respond to the trumpet's question. Each of the wind entrances is marked with an increasing agitation. However, the trumpet continues to deliver its eerie and unflappable question. There is no final answer to the last question. The strings continue to the end, echoing a soft and ethereal conclusion.

Ives made use of polyrhythms, polytonality, and the obliteration of pulse, all demonstrated in The Unanswered Question. His use of stereophonic and collage techniques were developed later by composer such as Cage, Berioo, Carter, and Brant. Ives pioneered a new relationship of music to time and brought about an "emancipation of rhythm."

-- program notes by Laurien Jones

May, 2002