Four Centuries of Great Music December 11, 2022 The Symphony Through the Centuries Episode 17

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music we have two Russian composers  Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin and an American composer, Charles Ives, with symphonies that were completed between 1904 and 1913.  

First is the choral symphony The Bells Op. 35 by Sergei Rachmaninoff.  This is in Movement four movements marked: Allegro ma non tanto: "The Silver Sleigh Bells”, Lento: "The Mellow Wedding Bells”, Presto: "The Loud Alarm Bells" and Lento lugubre: "The Mournful Iron Bells”.


Next is Charles Ives Symphony No. 3 - The Camp Meeting which was completed in 1910.  Gustav Mahler was scheduled to premiere it in 1911 but died before he could do that.  It did not receive its world premiere until April 5, 1946, with Lou Harrison , a big fan of the music of Ives, conducting the New York Little Symphony. Ives received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 3, and Ives is reported to have given half the money to Lou Harrison, who conducted the premiere.

The symphony is in three movements:
Old Folks Gatherin' – Andante maestoso
Children's Day – Allegro
Communion – Largo

Ives’ Symphony No. 3 itself was what he referred to as pivotal; it was in his words a “cross between the older ways and the newer ways.” By “older ways,” Ives was referring to the classical models of symphonic writing in both of his previous symphonies, the “newer ways” were to be found is his extensive use of borrowings of “found materials,” that is popular song, religious hymns, and folk tunes.  The narrative or program for the Third Symphony is conveyed by the subtitle “The Camp Meeting” and the individual movements, “Old Folks Gatherin’,” “Children’s Day,” and “Communion.” They are self- referential, to Ives childhood memories of camp meetings he attended where his father furnished the music and conducted the congregational and choral singing of hymns; Ives borrows several of these hymns

“Old Folks Gatherin’” reflects this origin in the Bachian four-part chorale texture that permeates the movement. The general pacing of the different melodic fragments (the hymns “Azmon,” “Woodworth,” and “Erie”) alludes to the coming together of the “Old Folks” for the meeting as a solo flute sings “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” of which only fragments of the melody had been previously heard.

As the title implies, the second movement “Children’s Day” is a happy, animated romp featuring the hymns “Fountain,” “Naomi,” and “The Happy Land” in counterpoint against one another. A march fills the middle section. The movement ends with a coda echoing “The Happy Land” and “Fountain.”

“Communion” is a meditation on all of the hymns from “Old Folks Gatherin’,” as well as the Bachian textures from that movement. In distinction from the first movement, however, the hymn “Woodworth” is far more prominent in the second half of this movement, becoming the exclusive hymn underlying the distant church bells with which the Symphony concludes.


We are going to close today’s Four Centuries of Great Music with Alexander Scriabin's Symphony No. 3 in C minor (Op. 43), entitled Le Divin Poème (The Divine Poem), was completed in 1904 and was premiered in Paris on May 29, 1905.

The symphony consists of four sections, played attacca  without pause:
Introduction Luttes (“Struggles”), Voluptés ("Delights")   vol-loop-tay  and Jeu divin ("Divine Play"