Listening Chart 21 Ives, Second Orchestral Set, “The Rockstrewn Hills”

Ives, Second Orchestral Set, “The Rockstrewn Hills”

4 min., 47 sec.

0:00 Introductory

“I remember, when I was a boy — at the outdoor Camp Meeting services in Redding (Conn.), all the farmers, their families and field hands, for miles around, would come afoot or in their farm wagons. I remember how the great waves of sound used to come through the trees. . . . There was power and exaltation in those great conclaves of sound from humanity.”

Charles Ives

0:17 Dance fragment, strings; interrupted
0:29 Dance fragment, woodwinds; interrupted
0:49 Ragtime fragment, piano
Kaleidoscopic array of fragmentary ideas; buildup
1:27 Brass becomes prominent.
1:58 Cakewalk fragment
2:07 Climax: homophony
2:34 Slowdown and pause (solo stringed instruments)
2:44 March fragment, trombones
3:00 The hymn is prefigured.
3:14 Dance fragment from beginning, brass — collapse
3:27 Hymn, clearer
3:57 At last the hymn emerges clearly: “I am coming, Lord!”
4:08 Fades: a fragmentary whole-tone scale in the piano