Donald Berman: Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass., 1840–1860” / The St. Gaudens (“Black March”)
Avie Records

If while listening to Donald Berman's version of Ives's Piano Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass., 1840–1860” you find yourself thinking it sounds somewhat unlike ones by other pianists, you're not wrong. In celebrating the sesquicentenary of the maverick composer's birth, the New England-based pianist and eminent Ives scholar has recorded his own newly prepared edition of the sonata, one that grew out of prolonged study and immersion. To prepare the piano score, Berman took stock of the many notes and alterations Ives made to the work's manuscript pages and incorporated changes he deemed essential to presenting the most authentic realization of the work. As an example, Berman determined that the conventional version of its opening movement departs from the one proposed by the composer and so integrated the equivalent of two pages of material into his updated treatment. As a result, in his hands the piece retains its essence but nevertheless sounds newly cast.

No one would seem to be more qualified for such a project than Berman. He's President and Treasurer of the Charles Ives Society, the General Editor of the three-volume Shorter Piano Works of Charles E. Ives, and had as one of his four teachers John Kirkpatrick, who gave the New York premiere of the “Concord Sonata" in 1939. Berman's thus a distinguished pianist but also a pedagogue and scholar possessing an inordinately deep grasp of the American composer and his work. His interests and expertise don't stop there, however: Berman's recordings feature material by Ives as well as other important twentieth-century figures, Elliott Carter, Roger Sessions, and Carl Ruggles among them.

Berman's scholarship is reflected in illuminating liner notes included with the release. His recounting of the sonata's evolution makes for fascinating reading and a reminder that even the most formally completed piece is sometimes a work-in-progress that extends beyond mere differences in interpretation. He reports that Ives, in fact, published the sonata twice, in 1919 first and then, with substantial revisions, in 1947 (he also, after this second edition was formally published, persisted in adding annotations to printed copies). After premiering it in 1939, Kirkpatrick recorded it twice, first in 1945, prior to the revised edition, and then in 1968. Different viewpoints also figure into interpreters' assessments, as evidenced by Kirkpatrick's contention that “a composer's first instincts [are] their best instincts” (thereby expressing a preference for Ives's first rather than second edition) versus Berman's determination that “Ives's best edition of ‘Concord' is in his last versions.” Complicating matters further, the work developed through a number of realizations affected by multiple recordings, annotations, and editions. Whatever the version presented, Ives's portrait of four Transcendentalists remains a monumental work and riveting creation.

Recorded in early January 2022 in Pelham, New York, the album begins with The St. Gaudens (“Black March”), which acts as a haunting prelude to the titanic sonata. Later developed as the first movement of Three Places in New England and inspired by Augustus Saint-Gaudens' sculpture on the Boston Common, the piece musically evokes the slow march of the Massachusetts 54th, one of the first Union army regiments of African American soldiers.

In Berman's view, the descending bass line of the opening bar in the “Concord Sonata” is the work's anchor as it transforms throughout the piece until, during the crepuscular rumination “Thoreau,” “it floats upward and becomes a descending soprano melody that quotes ‘Down in the Cornfield'.” In referencing Stephen Foster's “Master's in the Cold, Cold Ground” and thus the idea of slaves celebrating the death of their oppressor, Berman argues that the gesture alludes to the abolitionist activities of Thoreau, Emerson, and Brown Alcott. That detail aside, “Emerson” unfolds with its customary force as it advances through a luminous eighteen-minute movement that is at times shadowy and sometimes thunderous but always rhapsodic. The subsequent “Hawthorne” is similarly towering and tumultuous, but the oceanic movement sparkles with moments of playfulness and irreverence too. Offsetting the extroversion of the other movements is “The Alcotts,” whose poetic delicacy is captured beautifully in Berman's sensitive reading. The dignified and hymnal hush of the material acts as a lyrical rest-stop within the forty-six-minute presentation.

August 2024