The Charm of Ives

I was reading over Ives famous "Postface to 114 Songs" from _Essays
Before a Sonata_ and I am convinced again that Ives had *absolutely*
no idea of his own worth, nor did he care.

Not only did he view himself as truely an "amateur" in probably the
most deprecating sense of the term, but he seemed to feel that *any*
man had as much poetry and music in his spirit as *he* had...the
ultimate artistic democracy.

Of course, *that* part, the "artistic leveling" was totally wrong...
Ives was surely "special..."

However, isn't it refreshing, or even "charming" to find a genius
with *that* attitude as contrasted with self-proclaimed "geniuses"
like Schoenberg or Boulez?

The latter two *may* actually *be* geniuses (or they probably
wouldn't have gotten where they are) but how much more refreshing to
encounter a true talent who doesn't even knows he has it!

JP