CRITICAL EAR.

Byline: CRAIG SMITH 

Transcendental meditations

One expects a music score to have all kinds of indications in it beyond the notes, from tempo and dynamic markings to comments on expression. But you don't often get something like Charles Ives' monumental Piano Sonata No. 2 "Concord, Mass., 1840." Ives not only gave us music and rhythms; he handed over a road map,

a manifesto, and a lecture into the bargain.

Written mostly between 1911 and 1915 and revised in 1947, the nearly 45-minute work has four movements titled after the American Transcendentalists: "Emerson," "Hawthorne," "The Alcotts," and "Thoreau." Besides huge swaths of notes often covering three staves rather than the usual two -- a relic of the piece's first conception as an orchestral work -- the 68-page score has a page and a half of closely printed instructions as an appendix.

The notes are a mix of performance pragmatism and philosophical musings. Writing about "Emerson," Ives commented, "Throughout this movement, and to some extent in the others, there are many passages not to be too evenly played and in which the tempo is not precise or static; it varies usually with the mood of the day, as well as that of Emerson, the other Concord bards, and the player. A metronome cannot measure Emerson's mind and oversoul, any more than the old Concord Steeple Bell could. ... The same essay or poem of Emerson may bring a slightly different feeling when read at sunrise than when read at sunset."

That poetic but indefinite passage is quite in keeping with the iconoclastic Ives' passion, creativity, and character as well as with his unusual artistic life. The son of a bandmaster, Ives (1874-1954) took to music early, began composing in his teens, was a virtuoso organist by the time he was 20, and experimented early on with polytonality, polychords, and tone clusters. After a few years working as a professional church musician, he turned to the insurance business, building up a large fortune while continuing to write music almost obsessively for many years. His songs, chamber music, and orchestral pieces were generally unnoticed during his own life, but they now hold a solid place in the international repertoire -- among them Three Places in New England, the symphonies, songs such as "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven," the Piano Trio, the "America" variations for organ, and the "Concord."

"I got interested in Ives back in junior high school," said pianist Stephen Drury in a phone interview from Boston's New England Conservatory, where he teaches. A brilliant exponent of the "Concord," he plays it on Thursday, Dec. 11, for Santa Fe New Music at the Scottish Rite Center in a concert titled From Thoreau to Cage: American Voices.

"I had picked up a book by Peter Yates called Twentieth Century Music -- I'd never heard of any of this stuff. On page four of the book he talked about Cage's silent piece" -- the famous 1952 4'33" -- "and the more I read, the more I liked what I read. I started going to the Spokane Public Library and getting everything out they had." In fact, Drury remembered, he went through the music shelves like a whirlwind.

Drury found the Yates book in what might seem to be both an unlikely and perfect place: his piano teacher's waiting room. "She was always late with lessons, and so she would leave out what she was reading for you to look at while you waited for your lesson. I told John Cage about that years later, and he said, 'Ah, she was very wise, laying little traps for you!'

"The 'Concord' Sonata is one I've been playing since 1974, for the Ives centennial, and I've brought it back several times over the years," Drury said. "At this point it's almost automatically there. I haven't looked at it much; the last time was a couple of years ago.

"I'm not a very consistent practicer. I have all sorts of projects going having to do with teaching, conducting, organizing music festivals. But if I had to, I could sit down and play it right now, though it wouldn't be very good. I'll have it worked up for the Santa Fe concert." And no, he won't play it with the score. "I never feel I can play a piece unlike it's memorized, especially a piece that's difficult. I learn very slowly. By the time I can play the difficulties, it's memorized."

There are several unusual aspects of the "Concord" besides its sweep and conceptual points. For one thing, a viola part is indicated at one point in the score, as is a flute part -- an instrument Thoreau played. Those come from Ives' first conception of the sonata as an orchestral piece, as does the sheer amount of notes.

Beyond that, as the descriptive catalog of Ives' compositions in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University points out, he quotes from many different composers and pieces in the four movements: the theme from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and his "Hammerklavier" sonata, the Prelude to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and the "Wedding March" from his Lohengrin, and the old tune "Loch Lomond."

"I have a quibble about the viola part," Drury said. "If you look carefully at the score in his sketches, I don't think he intended it to be played in concert by a violist. It comes from his original orchestral idea of the piece. You know, it's like I would say to a student playing something by Liszt with a left-hand melody, 'Bring out the cello.' The flute -- well, he clearly would like the flute to be played. But I don't travel with a flutist."

Though Drury knows some parts of Ives' canon quite well, he's explored other corners less often, he said -- the songs, for example. "I've played a few, not nearly enough, some of the major ones. I've played a bit of the chamber music here and there. The Trio is really interesting. Some of it's extremely forward-looking and experimental in the best Ives tradition, and yet the last movement is more like the Ives of the third symphony, the 'revival' symphony. I've never heard a really successful performance [of the Trio]. The trick is to play the Scherzo fast enough. If you do, all the phrases hang together [and] it doesn't seem like a bad imitation of Ives.

"What's absolutely unique about Ives is his music was so grounded in the reality of everyday life," Drury stressed. "It's not fairy tales or imagined slumming, it's not Puccini writing La boheme but actual life as it's lived. Experiencing things. It's so grounded, and he had such thoughtful and inspired and deliberate craft and technique, that he was able to have those visions. The greatest music is always absolutely real, whether it's grounded in the abstract like Bach or Boulez or comes out of feeling."

From Thoreau to Cage: American Voices takes place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, at the Scottish Rite Center, 463 Paseo de Peralta. In addition to the "Concord" Sonata, Cage's Variations I will be performed. Tickets are $20 in advance through Santa Fe New Music (474-6601 or sfnm.org) and at Nicholas Potter Bookseller (211 E. Palace Ave., 983-5434) and $25 at the door;

$10 for students.

Also this week

Coro de Camara: traditional carols, including "The First Nowell," "Silent Night," and "What Child Is This?" Joe Cox, John Rangel, and Kelvin McNeal, pianistsherine Robinson, conductor. 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, United Church of Los Alamos, 2525 Canyon Road, Los Alamos; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, Santuario de Guadalupe, 100 S. Guadalupe St.; $20, $15 students and seniors at the door, children no charge; corodecamara-nm.org.

Santa Fe Community Orchestra: Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs, Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Emperor" Waltz, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Rena Harms, soprano; Oliver Prezant, conductor. 2:30 Sunday, Dec. 7, St. Francis Auditorium, 107 W. Palace Ave. no charge; 466-4879, sfco.org.

Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus: Brahms and Friends. Bartok's Hungarian Sketches, Dvoyrak's Concerto for Cello in B Minor, Brahms' Symphony No. 1. David Requiro, cello; Steven Smith, conductor. 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St.; $18-$65; 988-1234, 983-1414,

sf-symphony.org.

Musica Antigua de Albuquerque: In Natali Domini, Christmas music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Lutheran Church, 1701 Arroyo Chamiso, Santa Fe; $16, $13 seniors, $9 students; 505-842-9613,

la.unm.edu/~davies/MAA/MAA-home.html.

Santa Fe Pro Music: The Complete Bach Cello Suites.

Jaap ter Linden, soloist. 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9 (Suites 1, 4, 5)

and Wednesday, Dec. 10 (Suites 2, 3, 6); Loretto Chapel,

207 Old Santa Fe Trail. $15-$60; 988-1234, 988-4640, Ext. 1000,

santafepromusica.com