Sir Andrew Davis, Melbourne SO - Charles Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2015)

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Sir Andrew Davis, Melbourne SO - Charles Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2015)

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Charles Ives composed his first two symphonies between 1897 and 1902, but they weren't performed until a half-century later, when Leonard Bernstein premiered the Symphony No. 2 in 1951, and Richard Bales conducted the Symphony No. 1 in 1953. The contrasts between the two symphonies are striking, since the First was a student work, composed in emulation of the European tradition, while the Second was more idiosyncratic in the use of hymn tunes, folk songs, and other Americana, all developed in a freewheeling manner that reflected Ives' eclectic musical upbringing. This 2015 hybrid SACD by Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is a straightforward presentation of both works, side-by-side, and their differences are highlighted in the styles of playing. Because the First is a late Romantic symphony, it receives a rather serious and earnest interpretation, yet this piece isn't quite convincing because it seems too much like a pastiche of Dvorák and Tchaikovsky, and Ives' personality is barely perceptible. The performance of the Second is much more in keeping with Ives' character, and the playing is as jaunty and fresh as the previous performance was brooding and sentimental. Davis and the orchestra are committed in both of these performances, though it doesn't take close listening to tell which of the two symphonies they more enjoyed playing.

Review by Blair Sanderson, Allmusic.com

Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony begin at the beginning for what is going to be a substantial series devoted Charles Ives’s orchestral works; whether it’s going to be a comprehensive one or not remains to be seen. Completed in 1898, though not performed until 1953, the year before he died, the First Symphony was Ives’s graduation work from Yale. It’s a late-Romantic work, rooted in Tchaikovsky, Brahms and especially Dvořák, and thoroughly well behaved for the most part, too (Ives apparently cut a deal with his teacher Horatio Parker that allowed him a few harmonic indiscretions so long as the the first movement began and ended in the same key), with a convincing weight and a very decent fund of good tunes. But the five-movement Second, finished three years later, is much more self-consciously American in its sources – quoting hymn tunes, marches and popular songs, including Stephen Foster’s Camptown Races, and anticipating the much more radical use of that material to come. Davis and the orchestra capture the energy and moments of naughty-boy wildness in the music right up to the piled-up dissonance of the final chord, always remembering that both symphonies are fundamentally cut from traditional musical cloth. It’s a promising start to the series, though the music will become more interesting as it goes on.

Review by Andrew Clements, The Guardian

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Sir Andrew Davis, Melbourne SO - Charles Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2015)

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Sir Andrew Davis, Melbourne SO - Charles Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2015)

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Sir Andrew Davis, Melbourne SO - Charles Ives: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2015)

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