the concord sonata
i spent most of the day in long beach with chris. whilst returning home, i turned on the radio and heard some very thorny piano music. for some reason, the idea that it was charles tomlinson griffes' piano sonata kept going around in my mind, but i knew that it really wasn't that. i couldn't figure it out for awhile, but then i realized it probably was charles ives' concord sonata. as the piece went along, it became clearer and clearer that it was the concord sonata. the concord sonata is one of those ives pieces that sprawls, rambles, has little in the realm of discernable form, swings maddeningly between tonality, polytonality and pure atonality, quotes folk ditties and beethoven's 5th symphony and hymns and all sorts of stuff and is sort of like completely transcendant musical mud. it lasts too long and when you've finished listening to it, you can't really recall most of it, but it has changed you. in many ways it's like memories of being high--you know you had an experience, but you can't recall most of it. that's the concord sonata. since it's a solo piano piece, it's kind of an intimate feeling at the same time. ives' fourth symphony is like that as well, but it's a shorter work and since it uses a huge orchestra plus chorus it seems to not only wipe your memory banks clean, but to overwhelm you with sheer sonic madness. anyways, i'm glad i heard the concord sonata while driving the freeway, it was a wonderful thing to live through.