rash adventurers unite!

[Joseph Pehrson:]
>"By 1910 he [Ives] was so thoroughly committed to such rash
adventures that everyone who knew him except his wife, Harmony
Twitchell, considered him a crank..." . . . Man, it's amazing what was
published in 1966. Would the same be published today?? I rather
doubt it -- times have changed,

You really think so? I don't know, but I'd tend to think that Ives'
"respectability" will probably fall in and out of favor (or vogue) for
quite awhile to come... One of the things that really stunned me when
I first became interested in Ives and started reading what I could
find on him was how preposterously all over the board what I was
reading was... What an amazing (and often completely contradictory)
mishmash of reactions and appraisals!

But I think that that is probably a healthy (and no doubt fascinating)
part of what Ives was able to accomplish... I think Swafford seems to
be stressing something much like this is his book as well when he
writes:

"Certainly Ives has not unequivocally triumphed. His work sounds
peculiar to many people, and that is all right. He probably always
will sound that way to listeners and musicians who ask for elegance
and clarity of sound, because Ives did not much care about those
things. Ives may never be a full-fledged standard composer, his work
in the standard repertoire and among its certified masterpieces. The
fact is, I would hate to see him subjected to that fate and am sure he
would hate it too. Ives flayed the settled, the standard, the
predictable. He will forever be the maverick, the great exception.
More than any other artist on his level, he reminds us that greatness
is not merely a matter of polish but of spirit, of substance rather
than manner. He will remain a challenge to all of us and a threat to
some. That is all right." (Jan Swafford, _A Life with Music_, p. 432)

Dan