An American Triple Play: Ives, Carter and Barber

Charles Ives (1874-1954) may be our quintessential native composer and the one true innovator in this mixed American bag. After all, he built his most characteristic music on his own, rather than European, models. Quite the reverse of Samuel Barber (1910-1981), with his decidedly European, late-Romantic style, and even Elliott Carter (born in 1908), purveyor of a kind of progressive Americana growing out of principles set down by Schoenberg, and spiced by the polytonality of Ives and Varese, composers Carter sought out before either had achieved wide recognition.

Ives as creator of the small forms in which he reveled is presented with extraordinary skill by the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher (EMI 54552).

Everything that is most essentially Ivesian is pinpointed by these young musicians, whose playing also exhibits the highest degree of polish, something American performers tend, misguidedly, to find irrelevant to such a putatively “rugged” composer.

The Germans seem ultimately to find Ives much less alien than do the composer’s compatriots. Not that Ensemble Modern’s interpretations are entirely free of American intervention: An additional reason for their success is the participation of David Porter--part of whose life is devoted to engineering and programming duties at local FM station KPFK--who provided clarifying new editions of “Like a Sick Eagle,” “The Rainbow,” “Calcium Light Night” and some half-dozen others among the more than two dozen miniatures included.

The only qualification one might have about this production is with the rather too grandly operatic singing by British baritone Henry Herford in the more declamatory of the five songs he is assigned. But no big deal.

Clarification is likewise the aim of Oliver Knussen, who leads an expanded London Sinfonietta in Carter’s thorny 1969 Concerto for Orchestra (Virgin Classics 7592712).

Even under the best performance circumstances, as here, it’s not pretty music, with its stormy, aggravated sonic attacks and seemingly inhuman rhythmic intricacy. It’s a tough piece to play and tough to hear, but not nearly so off-putting as the previous recording (wisely withdrawn) by its dedicatees, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, would have had us believe.

The dedication and proficiency of Knussen and his players should, if there’s any justice, lead to wider acceptance of this fascinating score.

The other sizable work in this Carter program, his parched and perhaps pointlessly difficult 1990 Violin Concerto, is unlikely ever to make its way in the world.

Again, Knussen and his players deserve admiration for their tenacity while we commiserate with the heroic effort expended by the concerto’s soloist and dedicatee, Ole Bohn.

The remaining component of this trio, a collection of Samuel Barber’s accessible, finely crafted music for soprano and orchestra, belongs in any collection of recordings that aspires to be representative of 20th-Century American music.

Included are “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” two scenes each from “Antony and Cleopatra” and “Vanessa,” “Andromache’s Farewell” and some songs, among them the heart-stopping setting of James Agee’s “Sure on This Shining Night.”

All are magnificently delivered by Roberta Alexander--the only American performer in any of the music under discussion--and the Netherlands Philharmonic under Edo de Waart (Etcetera 1145).

Alexander’s soaringly ripe, superbly equalized and accurate soprano, allied to her profound concern for textual and dramatic values, might have been the dream instrument for which Barber created this richly expressive music.