No work by
Charles Ives
has a more complex editorial situation than the
Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord, Mass., 1840-1860)
. The piece was first published in 1920, after having been largely completed by 1915, and appeared in a second, revised edition in 1947, but that was not the end of the story. The aging
Ives
was plainly continuing to struggle with the material. He composed four companion
Emerson Sketches
related to the first movement, of which the last three were incorporated into the 1947 version's first movement, and he tinkered with the score of that edition to the point of driving his publishers to distraction. Here, pianist
Donald Berman
, a student of the work's early champion
John Kilpatrick
(who supervised the 1947 version), takes on the weighty task of deciding
' true intentions. He restores the first
Emerson Sketch
to the first movement, added many of
' last-minute emendations that were left on the cutting room floor, and more; the listener is directed to the booklet for a more detailed discussion. The bottom line is that
Berman
largely rejects the changes his teacher had pushed for, and the result is a quite novel reading of the work. The flowing opening gives the "
Emerson
" movement an entirely new effect at the beginning, with less of a feeling that the listener is jumping in mid-conversation. The album is worth the time of
buffs for
's editorial decisions alone, but the pianist also delivers convincing
in general, with vivid contrasts between the swirling multivocal passages and the hymn-like lyricism. By this time, the
"Concord" sonata
has quite a few recordings in the catalog, but here is a completely fresh one from a pianist as close as one can be to the
orbit, with the seldom-hear
St. Gaudens "Black March"
as a curtain-raiser. ~ James Manheim