For years, “Calcium Night” was a boisterous tradition at Yale University, where Charles Ives was a student between 1894 and 1898.
Students wishing to join a fraternity paraded around the campus, singing their fraternity’s song under the glow of a calcium light, the “limelight” used on theater stages before electricity. (The calcium light was so blinding that it was used during the American Civil War to illuminate artillery targets, and on navel vessels).
On November 2, 1937, the New York Times published a story under the headline, “End Yale ‘Calcium Night: Fraternities Abolish Old Custom as Tending to Disorder.” The story began, “‘Calcium Night,’ the quaint climax to the rushing period of junior fraternities at Yale University, was abolished tonight by action of the inter-fraternity council because of the ‘increasing riotous conduct’ to which it was conducive.”
All of this riotous frivolity lives on in Charles Ives’ Calcium Light Night, composed in 1907. Scored for piccolo, clarinet, cornet, trombone, bass drum, and two pianos (four players), it is one of Ives’ brief, experimental fragments, known as “cartoons,” or “take-offs.” Cast in “slow march time,” the piece begins with distant, barely audible voices which grow ever more present. Competing songs, including “And again we sing thy praises, Psi U., Psi U.!,” and “A band of brothers in D.K.E., we march along tonight,” form an enthusiastic cacophony. Unfolding as a palindrome, the voices enter in retrograde sequence as they fade into the night.
Recordings
- Ives: Set No. 1 (1901-11) : 5. Calcium Light Night, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra · Gilbert Kalish Amazon
Featured Image: Yale’s Calcium Light Night in 1910
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