There's "weird" and then there's "Weird" [Charles Ives discussion]

Thanks to Dan Sterns for referencing the article by David Schiff concerning
Charles Ives. Schiff has written some perceptive stuff this last year or
so, some of the articles having been included in prominent places in the
New York Times...

It seems that Schiff goes for the "weird" approach in order to keep Ives
from the trodden "mainstream." In this sense, he means it as an
accolade... There certainly is a big difference in a consideration of Ives
as a 'great- American- composer- genius- wonderful- offbeat-weirdo- wacko'
and Ives as a 'part-time- amateur- musician- wacko- Insurance-
Executive'...

The latter was, of course, an early view of Ives. By the time of the
William Austin book of 1966, which is not flattering at all, even this view
had changed. There is every sense in William Austin's book that Ives
should be taken seriously as a composer and not a crank. He does "crank
up" such magnificently damning statements as "Without the prose,
unfortunately, much of the music fails to make any clear effect..."

I guess the point was whether anybody in the 21st century could really make
that kind of statement and be taken seriously as an "evaluator" of Ives.
To me, anyway, it seems Ives insurance "stock" has gone way up... and some
of William Austin's statements would not be made at the present time.

Dan could have a point, though, in his statement that such opinions are
"waves" -- a bull and bear market in Ives' futures, so to speak....

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Joseph Pehrson