Set of Five Take-Offs for Piano

Description

Piano — The first of the five, Seen and Unseen, shows Ives at his most inviting: this relatively simple, expressive tune leads a listener surely, if quickly, from the safety of tonal harmony into the dense chromatic inflections of Ives' language, with stirring results. No. 2, Rough and Ready et al, is a thick exercise in counterpoint and polyrhythms, in which the momentum of pianistic figurations is often the sole organizing factor. This is followed by Song without (good) words, another beautiful entrée into the Ives style of harmonization, drawing expressive strength from extreme contrasts of density and register. 'Scene Episode' is a bipartie form; opening with a grey, mysterious Adagio, Ives soon eventuates a return to C major, for a glowing Cantabile, setting the stage for the brief final chorale, titled Bad Resolutions and Good WAN, whose beauty and calm belies a final, violent twist ending.