Charles Ives and Aaron Copland - A Listener's Guide: Parallel Lives Series, No. 1 Their Lives and Their Music

The title of this book is a misnomer: there are no parallels between these two composers' lives except that both were Americans and musical innovators. They were as different as they could be. Copland was an open-hearted, open-minded cosmopolitan New Yorker, who, actively engaged in human and social affairs, wrote mainly accessible music and books for the people. Ives was an embittered, idealistic, secretive recluse who wrote mainly inaccessible music and books for himself while selling insurance for a living. Yet, as Daniel Felsenfeld shows in this thoughtful, enlightening book, each in his own way laid the foundation for what came to be defined as the "American" sound and spirit in music. Convinced that a composer's work is inseparable from his life and personality, Felsenfeld divides his book into three inventively organized sections. Beginning with a brief biography and ending with a discussion of some of his subjects' striking characteristics, he shows how their training and experiences influenced their work and careers and then devotes the central part to analyzing their music. Guidance for listening and understanding is aided by a CD of their most familiar compositions in excellent performances.

Copland, son of Jewish Polish-Lithuanian immigrants, studied with Nadja Boulanger, but being surrounded by French music and culture only strengthened his resolve to become an "American" composer. Despite a brief flirtation with serialism, he was determined to close the gap between composer and audience, and he succeeded admirably: his colorful scores, often suffused with folk and jazz idioms, speak to everyone; he became not only one of the most popular, but most respected composers of his time. Ives, whose musician father opened his ears to unheard-of musical combinations, was born into a New England family steeped in transcendental philosophy. His music, eccentric and deliberately perverse, is an acquired taste. Any composer who feels impelled to write a long, linguistically and philosophically impenetrable essay explaining his "magnum opus" can hardly expect to capture a large audience. Felsenfeld makes the best possible case for it, but one senses admiration rather than love. The author's style is not always felicitous (Copland's teacher "feared that Ives' influence might improperly influence the talented young man"), but having obviously read all of Copland's popular and Ives' indigestible writings, he was perhaps improperly influenced himself. --Edith Eisler