Sinclair's catalogue of Ives's works also notes less obvious quotations of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata as well as quotations from Debussy and Wagner. The piece demonstrates Ives' experimental tendencies: much of it is written without barlines, the harmonies are advanced, and in the second movement, there are cluster chords created by depressing the piano's keys with a 14 + 3⁄ 4-inch (37 cm) piece of wood, as well as clusters marked "Better played by using the palm of the hand or the clenched fist." The piece also amply demonstrates Ives' fondness for musical quotation: the opening bars of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. "The Alcotts" (after Bronson Alcott and Louisa May Alcott)."Hawthorne" (after Nathaniel Hawthorne).This is undertaken in impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts, and a scherzo supposed to reflect a lighter quality which is often found in the fantastic side of Hawthorne." In the introduction to his Essays Before a Sonata (published immediately before the Concord Sonata, and serving as what Henry and Sidney Cowell called "an elaborate kind of program note (124 pages long)" ), Ives said the work was his "impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts of over a half century ago. The sonata's four movements represent figures associated with transcendentalism.
Kirkpatrick repeated the whole Sonata by popular request." Kirkpatrick proceeded to play the sonata in major cities around the United States. The Cowells wrote that the premiere generated "a riot of enthusiasm," and stated that "the audience responded so warmly that one movement had to be repeated, and on 24 February, at a second Town Hall program that was devoted entirely to Ives, Mr. Among those present was Elliott Carter, who reviewed the piece in the March–April 1939 edition of the journal Modern Music. On November 28 of that year, Kirkpatrick performed the sonata in its entirety at a public concert in Cos Cob, Connecticut, and on January 20, 1939, he gave the sonata its New York premiere at Town Hall in New York City.
USED EMERSON FLUTE SERIES
(In a letter to Ives dated June 22, 1938, Kirkpatrick wrote: "Last night, in our little series here, we got to the American impressionists, and I trotted out the whole Concord Sonata - not yet from memory - but it was nice to feel its unity." ) Kirkpatrick met Ives in person for the first time in 1937, and by 1938, Kirkpatrick was playing the entire sonata, performing it for the first time at a private concert in Stamford, Connecticut. Kirkpatrick began learning and performing individual movements of the piece and engaged in regular correspondence with Ives, and in 1934 he decided to learn the entire piece. He borrowed Heyman's copy and soon contacted Ives to request his own copy, which he promptly received.
In the spring of 1927, John Kirkpatrick saw the score of the sonata on Heyman's piano in her Paris studio, and was intrigued. Robert Schmitz, Oscar Ziegler, Anton Rovinsky, and Arthur Hardcastle performed various movements of the sonata.
According to Henry and Sidney Cowell, "she gave performances of it, usually one movement at a time, in conjunction with Bellamann's lectures, across the southern states from New Orleans to Spartanburg, South Carolina." ĭuring the late 1920s, a number of pianists including Katherine Heyman, Clifton Furness, E. However, the earliest known public performances of the sonata following its publication date back to October 1920, when author Henry Bellamann, who had been writing and lecturing about new music, persuaded a pianist named Lenore Purcell to tackle the work. Ives recalled performing parts of the (then incomplete) sonata as early as 1912. In 2012, a reprint of the original, uncorrected 1920 edition was published, including Essays before a Sonata and with an added introductory essay by the New England Conservatory's Stephen Drury. It is this version which is usually performed today. The Concord Sonata was first published in 1920 with a second, revised, edition appearing in 1947. Some material in the Concord Sonata dates back as far as 1904, but Ives did not begin substantial work on it until around 1909 and largely completed the sonata by 1915.