Ives: Keyboard Works
View all works by Ives in the main appExplore the complete catalog of Keyboard compositions by Ives. This curated list includes composition years, historical Wikipedia context, and interactive audio to add specific tracks directly to your listening queue.
| Title | Year | Actions |
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| 3 Quarter-Tone Pieces, for 2 pianos |
A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, and have 24 different pitches. Quarter tones have their roots in the music of the Middle East and more specifically in Persian traditional music. However, the first evidenced proposal of the equally-tempered quarter tone scale, or 24 equal temperament, was made by 19th-century music theorists Heinrich Richter in 1823 and Mikhail Mishaqa about 1840. Composers who have written music using this scale include: Igor Markevitch, Pierre Boulez, Julián Carrillo, Mildred Couper, George Enescu, Alberto Ginastera, Gérard Grisey, Alois Hába, Thomas Heberer Ljubica Marić, Charles Ives, Tristan Murail, Krzysztof Penderecki, Giacinto Scelsi, Ammar El Sherei, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tui St. George Tucker, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Iannis Xenakis, and Seppe Gebruers (See List of quarter tone pieces.) |
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| 3-Page Sonata |
The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as the Concord Sonata) is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts around 45 minutes. |
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| Allegretto: Invention |
This is a list of string quartet composers, chronologically sorted by date of birth and then by surname. It includes only composers who have Wikipedia articles. This list is by no means complete. String quartets are written for four string instruments—usually two violins, viola and cello—unless stated otherwise. |
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| Anthem: Processional |
Charles John Grayston Ives (born 1948), also known as Bill Ives, is a British composer, singer and choral director. |
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| Bad Resolutions and Good |
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1504 – 22 August 1553) was an English military officer and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death. The son of Edmund Dudley, a minister of Henry VII executed by Henry VIII, John Dudley became the ward of Sir Edward Guildford at the age of seven. Dudley grew up in Guildford's household together with his future wife, Guildford's daughter Jane, with whom he was to have 13 children. Dudley served as Vice-Admiral and Lord High Admiral from 1537 until 1547, during which time he set novel standards of navy organisation and was an innovative commander at sea. He also developed a strong interest in overseas exploration. Dudley took part in the 1544 campaigns in Scotland and France and was one of Henry VIII's intimates in the last years of the reign. He was also a leader of the religious reform party at court. In 1547, Dudley was created Earl of Warwick and, with the Duke of Somerset, England's Lord Protector, distinguished himself in the renewed Scottish war at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. During the country-wide uprisings of 1549 Dudley put down Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk. Convinced of the Protector's incompetence, he and other privy councillors forced Somerset out of office in October 1549. Having averted a conservative reaction in religion and a plot to destroy him alongside Somerset, Dudley emerged in early 1550 as de facto regent for the 12-year-old Edward VI. He reconciled himself with Somerset, who nevertheless soon began to intrigue against him and his policies. Somerset was executed on largely fabricated charges, three months after Dudley had been raised to the Dukedom of Northumberland in October 1551. As Lord President of the Council, Dudley headed a distinctly conciliar government and sought to introduce the adolescent King into business. Taking over an almost bankrupt administration, he ended the costly wars with France and Scotland and tackled finances in ways that led to some economic recovery. To prevent further uprisings he introduced countrywide policing on a local basis, appointing lord-lieutenants who were in close contact with the central authority. Dudley's religious policy was — in accordance with Edward's religion — decidedly Protestant, further enforcing the English Reformation and promoting radical reformers to high Church positions. The 15-year-old King fell ill in early 1553 and excluded his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, whom he regarded as illegitimate, from the succession, designating non-existent, hypothetical male heirs. As his death approached, Edward changed his will so that his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, Northumberland's daughter-in-law, could inherit the Crown. To what extent the Duke influenced this scheme is uncertain. The traditional view is that it was Northumberland's plot to maintain his power by placing his family on the throne. Many historians see the project as genuinely Edward's, enforced by Dudley after the King's death. The Duke did not prepare well for this occasion. Having marched to East Anglia to capture Mary, he surrendered on hearing that the Privy Council had changed sides and proclaimed Mary as queen. Convicted of high treason, Northumberland returned to Catholicism and abjured the Protestant faith before his execution on 22 August 1553. Having secured the contempt of both religious camps, popularly hated, and a natural scapegoat, he became the "wicked Duke" — in contrast to his predecessor Somerset, the "good Duke". Only since the 1970s has he also been seen as a Tudor Crown servant: self-serving, inherently loyal to the incumbent monarch, and an able statesman in difficult times. |
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| Baseball Take-Off |
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized through the efforts of contemporaries like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, and he came to be regarded as an "American original". Ives was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones. His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century. Hence, he is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century. Sources of Ives's tonal imagery included hymn tunes and traditional songs; he also incorporated melodies of the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster. |
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| Emerson |
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity. Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans," and Walt Whitman called Emerson his "master". Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. His speech "The American Scholar," given in 1837, was called America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence" by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance", "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "The Poet," and "Experience." Together with "Nature," these essays made the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets. He instead developed ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for mankind to achieve almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach, by rejecting views of God as separate from the world." He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers, and poets that followed him. "In all my lectures," he wrote, "I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man." Emerson is also well-known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow Transcendentalist. |
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| Emerson |
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity. Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans," and Walt Whitman called Emerson his "master". Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. His speech "The American Scholar," given in 1837, was called America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence" by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance", "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "The Poet," and "Experience." Together with "Nature," these essays made the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets. He instead developed ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for mankind to achieve almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach, by rejecting views of God as separate from the world." He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers, and poets that followed him. "In all my lectures," he wrote, "I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man." Emerson is also well-known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow Transcendentalist. |
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| Fugue in C minor, for organ |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Fugue in E flat major, for organ |
This is a list of musical compositions for keyboard instruments such as the piano, organ or harpsichord and orchestra. See entries for concerto, piano concerto, organ concerto and harpsichord concerto for a description of related musical forms. |
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| March no. 6 with 'Here's to Good Old Yale', for piano |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Piano Sonata no. 1 |
The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as the Concord Sonata) is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts around 45 minutes. |
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| Piano Sonata no. 2, "Concord" |
The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as the Concord Sonata) is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts around 45 minutes. |
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| Rough and Ready |
Rough Tough 'n' Ready is the fourth studio album by Australian pop group Hush. The album was released in November 1975 peaked at No. 15 and was certified quadruple gold on the Australian charts. In an interview with Anthony O'Grady of Rock Australia Magazine on 2 January 1976, band member Les Gock said "We really put a lot work into it. It's really a whole different direction to C'mon We're Taking Over which is where we tried to experiment in the studio. This time we tried to get the band's stage sound onto record and it's worked pretty well I think. Like it's lot more straightforward than C'mon We're Taking Over, but on the other hand, the playing is a lot more controlled and better judged." adding "We really sweated over every detail of it. We worked out exactly what we wanted to do on it, how we wanted it to sound, what sort of energy level we wanted on it." |
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| Scene Episode |
Around 4:30 a.m. on August 23, 1987, 16-year-old Don Henry and 17-year-old Kevin Ives were hit by a Union Pacific freight train in the town of Alexander, Arkansas, United States, as they were lying on the tracks. The locomotive engineer engaged the brakes while blowing the horn, but the train could not stop in time and rolled over the boys. Members of the locomotive crew stated that the bodies were partly covered by a tarpaulin and were motionless. The deaths were initially ruled an accident, but further investigation and conflicting evidence lead a grand jury to rule the deaths "probable homicides.". Popular speculation on the facts of the case has produced media coverage and allegations of wrongdoing by several government agencies. |
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| Set of Five Take-Offs, for piano |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Sonata no. 1 |
The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as the Concord Sonata) is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts around 45 minutes. |
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| Song Without Words |
"Words" is a song by F. R. David, released as a single in 1982 from his same-named debut album. The song was a huge European hit, peaking at number one in West Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, and Norway. In early 1983, it peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, and it also went to number one in South Africa in late 1982, spending 25 weeks on the charts, eventually becoming the most successful hit on that country's year-end chart. In Australia, the single peaked at number 12 and spent 41 weeks within the top 100 in two chart runs throughout 1983 and early 1984. In 2006, David released a French language duet version of the song with singer Winda Sylviana, entitled "Words, J'aime ces Mots," the pair also recorded an English duet version entitled "Words." The song is on the Call Me by Your Name soundtrack. |
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| Storm and Distress |
Any port in a storm is a proverb that loosely means that when someone is in trouble they cannot wait for the perfect solution. The phrase has been used in popular culture and politics since at least 1749. The original meaning of this nautical phrase was that a ship at sea in rough weather had no choice of harbor for shelter. |
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| Study no. 15 |
Grace Ives (born c. 1995) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music has been positively reviewed by publications including Stereogum, which featured her on its Best New Bands of 2019 list, and Pitchfork, which awarded her second studio album Janky Star (2022) its Best New Music rating. |
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| Study no. 18 |
Grace Ives (born c. 1995) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music has been positively reviewed by publications including Stereogum, which featured her on its Best New Bands of 2019 list, and Pitchfork, which awarded her second studio album Janky Star (2022) its Best New Music rating. |
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| Study no. 2: Andante moderato-Allegro molto, etude for piano |
This is a list of Private Passions episodes from 2020 to present. It does not include repeated episodes or compilations. |
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| Study no. 20: March |
Grace Ives (born c. 1995) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music has been positively reviewed by publications including Stereogum, which featured her on its Best New Bands of 2019 list, and Pitchfork, which awarded her second studio album Janky Star (2022) its Best New Music rating. |
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| Study no. 21: Some Southpaw Pitching, etude for piano | ||
| Study no. 22: Andante maestoso. Allegro vivace, etude for piano |
This is a list of notable solo cello pieces. It includes arrangements and transcriptions. |
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| Study no. 23: Allegro, etude |
This article lists compositions written for piano duo. The list includes works for piano four-hands and works for two pianos. Catalogue number and date of composition are also included. Ordering is by composer surname. A list of notable performers who played and recorded these works is at List of classical piano duos (performers). |
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| Study no. 5 |
Grace Ives (born c. 1995) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music has been positively reviewed by publications including Stereogum, which featured her on its Best New Bands of 2019 list, and Pitchfork, which awarded her second studio album Janky Star (2022) its Best New Music rating. |
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| Study no. 6 |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Study no. 7 |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Study no. 8 |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Study no. 9: The Anti-Abolitionist Riots in the 1830s and 1840s, for piano |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| The Alcotts |
The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60 (commonly known as the Concord Sonata) is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts around 45 minutes. |
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| The Celestial Railroad, take off for piano |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| The Seen and Unseen |
"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 elegiac poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between the river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyond death, the "boundless deep", to which we return. |
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| Three-Page Sonata, for piano |
In music, a sonata (; pl. sonate) is a piece that consists of 3 or 4 movements that can be for different musical instruments. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas maintain the overarching structure. The term sonatina, pl. sonatine, the diminutive form of sonata, is often used for a short or technically easy sonata. |
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| Variations on 'America,' for organ |
Variations on "America" is a composition for organ by the American composer Charles Ives first performed in 1892 for an Independence Day celebration. |
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| Varied Air and Variations, for piano |
The compositions of American composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) are mostly modern classical music. Ives was prolific, revised works multiple times, and left ambiguous fragments with no title or notes. A chronology of works is especially difficult because of missing and sometimes misleading dates; as Elliott Carter put it in 1939: "[Ives] has rewritten his works so many times, adding dissonances and polyrhythms, that it is impossible to tell just at what date the works assumed the surprising form we know now." This list follows James B. Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. It does not include fragments or projected works. |
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| Waltz-Rondo |
"Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem". The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot, by walking (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back, a slang expression that may have originally been repurposed from a work of light verse by Charles Godfrey Leland. The song narrates the story of a "swagman" (itinerant worker) boiling a billy at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (grazier), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site. The original lyrics were composed in 1895 by the Australian poet Banjo Paterson, to a tune played by Christina MacPherson based on her memory of Thomas Bulch's march Craigielee, which was in turn based on James Barr's setting for Robert Tannahill's poem "Thou Bonnie Wood o Craigielee". The first published setting of "Waltzing Matilda" was Harry Nathan's on 20 December 1902. Nathan wrote a new variation of Christina MacPherson's melody and changed some of the words. The Sydney tea merchant James Inglis wanted to use "Waltzing Matilda" as an advertising jingle for Billy Tea. In early 1903, Inglis purchased the rights to 'Waltzing Matilda' and asked Marie Cowan, the wife of one of his managers, to try her hand at turning it into an advertising jingle. Cowan made some more changes to the words and some very minor changes to Nathan's melody and gave the song a simple, brisk, harmonious accompaniment which made it very catchy. Her song, published in 1903, grew in popularity, and Cowan's arrangement remains the best-known version of "Waltzing Matilda". Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that it has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, in the Queensland outback, where Paterson wrote the lyrics. In 2012, to remind Australians of the song's significance, Winton organised the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, wrongly thought at the time to be the anniversary of its first performance. The song was first recorded in 1926 as performed by John Collinson and Russell Callow. In 2008, this recording of "Waltzing Matilda" was added to the Sounds of Australia registry in the National Film and Sound Archive, which says that there are more recordings of "Waltzing Matilda" than any other Australian song. |
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| Waltz: Rondo |
"Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem". The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot, by walking (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back, a slang expression that may have originally been repurposed from a work of light verse by Charles Godfrey Leland. The song narrates the story of a "swagman" (itinerant worker) boiling a billy at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (grazier), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site. The original lyrics were composed in 1895 by the Australian poet Banjo Paterson, to a tune played by Christina MacPherson based on her memory of Thomas Bulch's march Craigielee, which was in turn based on James Barr's setting for Robert Tannahill's poem "Thou Bonnie Wood o Craigielee". The first published setting of "Waltzing Matilda" was Harry Nathan's on 20 December 1902. Nathan wrote a new variation of Christina MacPherson's melody and changed some of the words. The Sydney tea merchant James Inglis wanted to use "Waltzing Matilda" as an advertising jingle for Billy Tea. In early 1903, Inglis purchased the rights to 'Waltzing Matilda' and asked Marie Cowan, the wife of one of his managers, to try her hand at turning it into an advertising jingle. Cowan made some more changes to the words and some very minor changes to Nathan's melody and gave the song a simple, brisk, harmonious accompaniment which made it very catchy. Her song, published in 1903, grew in popularity, and Cowan's arrangement remains the best-known version of "Waltzing Matilda". Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that it has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, in the Queensland outback, where Paterson wrote the lyrics. In 2012, to remind Australians of the song's significance, Winton organised the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, wrongly thought at the time to be the anniversary of its first performance. The song was first recorded in 1926 as performed by John Collinson and Russell Callow. In 2008, this recording of "Waltzing Matilda" was added to the Sounds of Australia registry in the National Film and Sound Archive, which says that there are more recordings of "Waltzing Matilda" than any other Australian song. |