Piano Trio

…But as far as Charles Ives was concerned, such nice textural considerations were for the “lilies” and the “soft- ears” to worry about. He was more inclined to welcome the incompatibility and to set himself a real, man-size problem, such as writing a quartet for three instruments.

Ives's Piano Trio, written mainly in 1904 and revised In 1911, is one of his most formal works - which does not mean that it is in any way conventional. The first movement, for example, proceeds according to a fairly obvious but thoroughly radical plan (and, incidentally, with no dynamic markings what soever). It begins as a duet for cello and the pianist's right hand. At first there is an imitative relationship between them, based on the intervals of a rising major seventh and a falling minor second. But they very soon diverge in every rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic respect before coming to an uneasy polytonal agreement, which at one point involves the cello in a red-white-and-blue fanfare of fourths and fifths. Then there is a second duet, this time for violin and the pianist's left hand. It, too, begins with a contrapuntal exchange, on the intervals, but the divergence and the fanfare passage, though recognisably related to those of the earlier duet, are quite different in detail. The third part of the movement is what can only be described an a quartet - a combination of the two duets, simultaneously and almost literally repeated. Textural compatibility in no consideration here.

The second movement in headed Tsiaj in the published score but has a

lees enigmatic description attached to it in the sketches - Medley on the Campus Fence. It is a partly rowdy and partly sentimental student reunion of national airs, hymns, and popular songs. The first tune after the introduction, played very loud by violin and cello in parallel tenths and accompanied by the piano in both G and F sharp major, might well be identifiable to alumni of Yale but is not as familiar to a British audience as those which follow. “Marching through Georgia” on violin with percussive (“as a bass drum”) clusters on the piano, is quickly distorted and fragmented into numerous tiny echoes, including “Jingle Bells” and “Boys come out to Play.” There is a substantial quotation from “My Old Kentucky Home”on the piano, with a thoroughly irrelevant chromatic obbligato on the violin. It is abruptly broken off to make way for an adagio reminiscence of “In the Sweet By and by.”

The only other tune which is given the full treatment is the hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood,” which - after snatches of hornpipe, ragtime, “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, barn and other dances - emerges as the climax of the movement. Grandiose at first in C major, it is made all the more expressive by blue notes and syncopations before it, too, is abruptly interrupted to make way for “In the Sweet By and By.” The piano cadenza is a, presumably parodistic sunrise: after all “This scherzo is a joke” (Tsiaj).

The third movement reverts to the formality of the first. The opening fanfares, which are no doubt intended as a reference back to the first movement, are integrated into the construction in an almost classical manner. They are associated with both main themes - the G major hymn tune on the cello, to which they are attached by a bitonal canon between piano and strings, and the atonal melody harmonised in ninths and sevenths on the piano and then on violin and cello. The fanfares also surmount a long and quite uncharacteristic climax of sequences. The great inspiration of the movement is that it does not end there. A quiet epilogue combines “Rock of Ages” in F major with the atonal melody and the ethereal piano decorations which Ives was apt to apply at such transcendental moments as this.