Born in Danbury, Connecticut in 1874, Charles Ives conceived of a brash, previously unimaginable kind of 20th century music. He experimented with collages of sound and rhythm in brief chamber music fragments which he called “sets” or “cartoons.”
One such experimental work is The Gong on the Hook and Ladder, or Firemen’s Parade on Main Street. The music originated as a section of Ives’ Pre-Second String Quartet, composed between 1904 and 1906 and later discarded. In 1911, it was revised for chamber orchestra. An experiment in superimposed metric and rhythmic patterns, it depicts the joyous cacophony of a small New England town’s Fireman’s Parade. The meter of 7/8 time is hardly discernible. Popular song fragments emerge, which include “Oh My Darling, Clementine,” the American Civil War song, “Marching Through Georgia,” and the Yale Psi Upsilon marching song, “Few Days.”
Ives provided the following description:
…another nice joke, which most everybody can see…The Annual Parade of the neighborhood Volunteer Fire Company was a slow marching affair—for the Hook and Ladder was heavy, the Gong on the hind wheel ‘must ring steady-like’—and coming downhill and holding backward fast, and going uphill out of step, fast and slow, the Gong seemed sometimes out of step with the Band, and sometimes the Band out of step with the Gong—but the Gong usually got the best of it. Nobody always seemed to “keep step,” but they got there just the same…
Leonard Bernstein included The Gong on the Hook and Ladder on one of his Young People’s Concerts, where he referred to Ives, a successful insurance executive by day, a genius and a pioneer with a touch of madness. According to Bernstein, at the end of the day, Ives’ “mixed-up music” is pure fun. On January 31, 1967, Bernstein conducted the world premiere recording:
Hymn: Largo cantabile
Another work to emerge from the discarded Pre-Second String Quartet was the Hymn: Largo cantabile. Serene and haunting, it contains echoes of late Mahler, and anticipates Bartók works to come. The solo cello emerges as a voice of lament. Two hymn melodies drift into the musical dreamscape: “More Love to Thee,” and “Olivet.”
Recordings
- Ives: The Gong on the Hook and Ladder, or Firemen’s Parade on Main Street, Hymn: Largo cantabile, Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic Amazon
Featured Image: “Firemen on parade at Wooster Square, marching from Main St. into White St.” (c. 1890), From the photographic collection of the Scott-Fanton Museum, Danbury, Connecticut.
I must say that I really enjoyed The Gong on the Hook and Ladder – both the music and the title, plus story behind it. I was amused to learn that he described the composition as a joke because as soon as I began listening I started smiling. The heavy-footed gonging and recognition of the themes playing behind it had everything to do with it. As if he were inviting the listener in on a private joke. Very modern sounding. Great post. Pleased to have discovered Ives!