When, in 1922, Charles Ives published a volume entitled 114 Songs, he was indirectly drawing attention to the fact that the genre played a central part in his output. 85 years on and, for all that his wider reputation may rest on orchestral, chamber and piano music, songs represent the heart of his creative thinking. Nor was that initial volume comprehensive; Ives having written nearly 200 songs, of which this edition includes all those he completed. The expressive variety is vast: indeed, the gradual evolution of Ives's songwriting, from those drawing on Austro-German Lieder and English parlor-song traditions to ones that evince anarchic humor as keenly as others do profound vision, is analogous to the evolution of American music over the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Although it would be possible to collate Ives's songs according to type, the alphabetic approach adopted by this edition ensures each volume (of which this disc is the fifth) contains a representative cross-section of his achievement. A wide range of poets is set, including a number of (mainly early) German settings as well as forays into French and Italian writers. The temporal distance (1887-1926) traversed by these songs is as little compared to their stylistic diversity or their emotional range.

Tracklist:

Paracelsus
Peaks
A Perfect Day
Pictures
Premonitions
Qu'il M'irait Bien
The Rainbow, "So May it Be!"
Religion
Remembrance
Requiem
Resolution
Rock Of Ages
Romanzo Di Central Park
Rosamunde (1st Version)
Rosamunde (2nd Version)
Rosenzweige
Rough Wind
A Scotch Lullaby
A Sea Dirge
The Sea Of Sleep
The See'r
Sehnsucht
September
Serenity
The Side Show
Slow March
Slugging A Vampire
Soliloquy
A Son Of A Gambolier
Song
A Song - For Anything: Hear My Prayer, O Lord
A Song - For Anything: When The Waves Softly Sigh
A Song - For Anything: Yale, Farewell!
Song For Harvest Season
The Song Of The Dead
Songs My Mother Taught Me
The South Wind
Spring Song
Sunrise
Swimmers

UPC: 636943927328
Label: Naxos American
Release Date: 10.28.08
Format: CD

Ives / Baty / Carfizzi / Howell / Macpherson - Complete Songs 5 (CD)