"Central Park in the Dark" for Orchestra - Charles Ives

Описание: Royal Northern Sinfonia conducted by James Sinclair.

I - Molto adagio - Più mosso - Allegretto con spirito - Allegro moderato - Allegro con spirito - Allegro vivace - Allegro molto - Con fuoco - Adagio molto: 0:00

Ives' "Central Park in the Dark" was composed between July and December 1906 (1909 according to other sources), being possibly revised in 1936. It was premiered on May 11 of 1946, performed by a student chamber orchestra from the Juilliard Graduate School conducted by Theodore Bloomfield. It was originally paired with "The Unanswered Question" as part of "Two Contemplations" and with "Hallowe'en" and "The Pond" in "Three Outdoor Scenes".

The piece is programmatic in nature, as Ives describes: "This piece purports to be a picture-in-sounds of the sounds of nature and of happenings that men would hear some thirty or so years ago (before the combustion engine and radio monopolized the earth and air), when sitting on a bench in Central Park on a hot summer night." The piece quotes many popular tunes of the time; "Ben Bolt", "The Campbells are Comin'", "Hello! Ma Baby", "Violets" and Sousa's "Washington Post March". The work also displays layers orchestral textures on top of each other to create a polytonal atmosphere, with different sections of the orchestras in contrasting and clashing pairings (i.e. the ambient, static strings against the syncopated ragtime pianos against a brass street band).

The piece begins with calm string harmonies representing the darkness and silence of night. The clarinet reference popular tunes that come from the Casino over the pond, street singers coming up from the Circle singing and some "night owls" from Healy's whistling the latest of the Freshman March. Flute and oboe join in this series of quotations, before the piano softly references "Hello! Ma Baby". The music begins to accelerate and layers and quotes begin to chaotically accumulate, representing a street parade, or a "break-down" in the distance of newsboys crying "uxtries", of pianolas having a ragtime war in the apartment house "over the garden wall", a street car and a street band join in the chorus. A massive, dissonant climax signals a fire engine, a cab horse runs away, lands "over the fence and out", the wayfarers shout. The darkness of strings and fragmentary quotes are heard again, an echo over the pond as we walk home.

Picture: Picture of Charles Ives fused with a Photograph of Central park in the night.

Source: https://rb.gy/9nsnv

To check the score: https://rb.gy/3vjvk