c1947 photo: Frank Gerratana
courtesy Yale Music Library
Charles Ives’ Universe Symphony has become the stuff of legend.  Composed in parallel with the fourth, the last of his numbered symphonies, it languished in the composer’s original fragments (aside from one version created after his death) until the premiere of Johnny Reinhard’s remarkable new realization in 1996.  For the last decades of his life, health badly compromised through overwork, Ives begged others to finish the symphony from his comprehensive sketches.  None would.

The Universe Symphony can now be seen clearly as Ives’ largest and grandest conception.  As the last work of this inveterate musical iconoclast, it is only fitting that its instrumentation be strikingly different and more ambitious than any other.  Characteristically far-reaching, the composer described the symphony enigmatically, more in terms of the ‘painting of Creation’ and ‘not music as such.’  During his lifetime, its completion would remain out of his grasp, to his intense frustration.

New findings and research by Johnny Reinhard enabled him to construct a fresh performing version lasting 64 minutes and requiring 74 musicians including, extraordinarily, nine flutes, five bassoons and fourteen percussionists.  He conducted its premiere, at Lincoln Center, New York, on June 6 1996 with the full approval of the Charles Ives Society. For the last five years, the Stereo Society has been carefully preparing a commercial recording directed by Reinhard of this new version which benefits from many of New York's top musicians.  Unsurprisingly, this recording also needed to utilize some novel techniques.

The names of its movements are evocative: Earth Alone, Pulse Of The Cosmos, Birth Of The Oceans, Earth Is Of The Heavens and more.  Dramatically, most of the first half hour is scored for percussion alone, building from a solitary low bell to a unique sonic mix with all players sounding different patterns, until winding down again.  This remarkable pattern cycles through and underpins the whole work, and when solo anticipates later all-percussion pieces such as Varèse’s Ionisation and Cage’s Constructions In Metal.  The second half layers the huge, unique orchestra over the ceaseless percussion, until concluding the tenth cycle with the solitary bookend, the low bell.

The symphony’s realization differs from convention in almost every imaginable way, yet Reinhard remarks that he did not add any notes to the composer’s original manuscripts.  He sees his role not as a creator, but rather a curator, and has argued his editorial decisions coherently and decisively in a book of nearly 200 pages.  The new, authoritative recording documents, finally, the crowning achievement of America’s musical father figure.  At last, Mr Ives might have been satisfied.

download a bundle of four five-minute excerpts
from the Universe Symphony (18Mb): mp3 | m4a

To Ives Primer 1: His Life

Charles Ives at the Stereo Society:
To Charles Ives' Stereo Society home page

To the Universe Symphony CD page
To reviews of the Universe Symphony CD

Ives Primer 1: His Life
Ives Primer 2: His Significance
Ives Primer 3: His Universe Symphony
Ives: Short Biography
Ives Downloads and Resources

Symphonic Tradition And The Universe Symphony, by Johnny Reinhard
Of Pitch And Time: Delivering The Universe Symphony, by Johnny Reinhard
Interview (2005) with Johnny Reinhard about the Universe Symphony

Performers of the Universe Symphony
Recording the Universe Symphony: the producer's note
Recording the Universe Symphony: the sound engineer's note

Thumbnail links to selected Ives site illustrations

Premiere Previews and Reviews:
New York Times June 2 1996 (Richard Taruskin)
New York Times June 8 1996 (Alex Ross)
Village Voice April 5 1995 (Kyle Gann)
Village Voice June 4 1996 (Kyle Gann)
Village Voice June 25 1996 (Kyle Gann)

Johnny Reinhard: A Short Biography 2005
To Johnny Reinhard's home at the Stereo Society