April

1896: Premiere: song Through Night and Day (Zimmerman [no first name, voice identification, or accompanist is known]), at New Haven, Conn.

1902: Date on manuscript: Alcott Overture begun (developed into the "Alcotts" mvt. ofSonata No. 2 for Piano:  Concord, Mass.)

1908: Harmony Twichell adapts song Die Lotosblumeas The South Wind.

1923: Second printing: 114 Songs; First publication: Fifty Songs, Redding, Conn., by the author

Apr 1  1906: Date on manuscript: chamber ens Halloween "(on the 1st of April!) Pine Mt." (a vacation spot SW of Danbury, Conn.)
1965: First recording: choral Processional: Let There Be Light (The Gregg Smith Singers, cond. by Gregg Smith; issued in 1969 by Columbia Records)

Apr 2  1951: Premiere: song Aeschylus and Sophocles  (Muriel Maxwell [Mez] and Shibley Boyes [pf], with George Kast [vn], Milton Feher [vn], Abraham Weiss [va], and Alexander Reisman [vc]), at Wilshire Ebell Chamber Music Hall, Los Angeles (presented by Evenings on the Roof)

Apr 3  1950: Premiere: piano Studies No. 9 and No. 21 (Jerrold Cox [pf]), at Carl Fischer Hall, New York City
1974: First recording: March No. 2, with "Son of a Gambolier", March No. 3, with "My Old Kentucky Home,   An Old Song Deranged,Evening [mvt. iv of Set No. 6], and Remembrance [mvt. iii of Set No. 7] (Yale Theater Orchestra, cond. by James Sinclair; issued in 1974 by CBS Masterworks)

Apr 4  1951: First publication: Symphony No. 2, ed. by Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, New York: Southern Music Publishing Company
1969: Death of wife Harmony Twichell Ives (age 93) at West Redding, CT. Ives set eight texts by her as songs: "Autumn," "Mists," "The South Wind," "Spring Song," "To Edith," "Two Little Flowers," "The World's Highway," and the translation of "Ilmenau" as "Over the treetops."

Apr 5  1649: Birth of Elihu Yale, donor/namesake for Yale University, Charles Ives’s alma mater. Ives graduated from Yale College in 1898. A number of his works were written for or are about Yale: Symphony ii of Set No. 1], "Calcium Light Night" [mvt. v of Set No. 1], March: The Circus Band, Postlude in F,   Yale-Princeton Football Game, band March in F and C, with "Omega Lambda Chi" and March   "Intercollegiate," with "Annie Lisle", String Quartet No. 1: From the Salvation Army, Trio for Violin,   Violoncello, and Piano, March No. 6 for Piano, with "Here’s to Good Old Yale", pianoInvention in D, organ Fugue in C Minor and Fugue in E-flat, choral Easter Carol, The Bells of Yale, The Boys in Blue, A   Song of Mory’s, Turn Ye, Turn Ye, For You and Me,Serenade, The Year’s at the Spring, song A Song for   Anything—Yale, Farewell!, most of Ives’s German songs (e.g. Feldeinsamkeit, Gruss, Ich grolle nicht,   Widmung), and songs Country Celestial, Friendship, My Native Land [I], No More, On Judges’ Walk, and  Qu’il m’irait bien (among others).
1946: Premiere: Symphony No. 3 (New York Little Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Lou Harrison), at Carnegie Chamber Music Hall, New York City

Apr 6  1917: The United States declares war against Germany; Ives reacts with songsIn Flanders Fields, He Is There! and Tom Sails Away.

Apr 7  1770: Birth of poet William Wordsworth at Cockermouth, England. Ives used Wordsworth texts in songs   I travelled among unknown men and The Rainbow.
1901: Central Presbyterian Church choir (Charles E. Ives [org/cond]) performs Easter Carol

Apr 9  1929: Premiere: Hans Barth and another unidentified pianist play mvt. i (Largo) of Three Quarter-Tone Pieces at the Ballroom of Plaza Hotel, New York City
1945: First recording: John Kirkpatrick records Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass. and mvt. iib("In the Inn") of Sonata No. 1 for Piano, for Columbia Records (issued 1948)
1954: Premiere: A Symphony: New England Holidays, complete (Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Antal Dorati), at Northrop Memorial Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minn.

Apr 10  1829: Birth of Salvation Army leader William Booth at Nottingham, England. Ives celebrated Booth in his song   General Booth Enters into Heaven.

Apr 11  1962: First recording: orchestral The Pond (Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. by William Strickland; issued in 1963 by Composers Recordings Inc.)
1963: First recording: The Fourth of July [mvt. iii of "Holidays Symphony"] (Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, cond. by William Strickland; issued in 1964 by Composers Recordings Inc.)
1969: Premiere: chamber ens The Rainbow  (by an unidentified Western Connecticut State College ensemble) in Berkshire Auditorium, Danbury, Conn.

Apr 12  1882: George Ives and company produce Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience at the Opera House
1891: Diary: choral Psalm 42: As Pants the Hart, at the Baptist Church, Danbury, Conn.
1977: First recording: songs The Camp Meeting, Chanson de Florian,Qu’il m’irait bien, Rosamunde [French text], Sunrise, and Watchman (William Parker [Bar] and Dalton Baldwin [pf]; issued in 1978 by New World Records)

Apr 13  1913: Date on manuscript: chamber ens In Re Con Moto et al., end of sketch, "Hartsdale[, NY]"

Apr 14  1890:Premiere: prototype of choral Turn Ye, Turn Ye, at Danbury Baptist Church

Apr 15  1917: Premiere: song In Flanders Fields (McCall Lanham [?Bar] and William Lewis [pf]), at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City
1934: Premiere: choral The New River and December (unidentified chorus and ensemble, cond. by Nicolas Slonimsky), at Town Hall, New York City

Apr 17  1950: First recording: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (Patricia Travers [vn] and Otto Herz [pf]; issued 1951 by Columbia Records)

Apr 18  1882: Birth of conductor Leopold Stokowski at London, England. Stokowski conducted the premiere of   Symphony No. 4, Robert Browning Overture, and choral An Election, Lincoln, the Great Commoner, The   Masses (The Majority), and They Are There!
1902: Premiere: cantata The Celestial Country (Central Presbyterian Church choir and instrumentalists; Charles Ives, org/cond), at Central Presbyterian Church, New York City
1966: First documented performance: choral General William Booth Enters into Heaven, Two Slants (Christian   and Pagan), Walt Whitman, and Psalms 54, 90, 100,and 150 (Gregg Smith Singers, cond. by Gregg Smith), at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Leo S. Bing Center, Los Angeles, Calif.

Apr 19  1775: Battle of Lexington (Mass.) which, in part, precipitated the Colonys’ "Declaration of Independence." Ives’s "Putnam’s Camp" [mvt. ii of Three Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1)] includes an episode about the Revolutionary War.
1889: Diary: First game of The Alerts, Ives’s baseball team in Danbury, Conn. Ives connected his music to baseball in chamber ens Scherzo: All the Way Aroung and Back and piano Study No. 21: Some Southpaw Pitching.
1934: Premiere: songs Thoreau and Walt Whitman (John Peirce [Bar] and an unidentified pianist), at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
1942: Premiere: song Canon [II] (Ethel Luening [S] and Lionel Nowak [pf]), at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio, New York City
1991: Premiere: piano Study No. 16 & 19 (Donald Berman) in a realization by John Kirkpatrick and Donald Berman, at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.

Apr 20  1889: Birth of German dictator Adolf Hitler at Braunau-am-Inn, Austria. Ives railed against World War II and dictators in his song They Are There!
1924: Birth of conductor Gerhard Samuel at Bonn, Germany. Samuel conducted the premiere of Larry Austin’s version of Ives’s Universe Symphony.

Apr 21  1910: Death of Mark Twain [Samuel L. Clemens] (family friend), age 74, at West Redding, Conn. Ives’s fiancee, Harmony Twichell presented Ives to Twain for his approval. Just to make the awkward youngster more uncomfortable, Twain drew out his first overlook, finally ordering "Spin him around—let’s see the aft!"
1930: Premiere: Set No. 8: Songs without Voices [mvts: "The New River," "The Indians," "Ann Street"] (Harry Freistadt [tpt] and Imre Weisshaus [pf]), at Carnegie Chamber Music Hall, New York City
1950: First publication: song Chanson de Florian and The Light That Is Felt, repr. as separate song sheets, New York: Mercury Music

Apr 22  1917: Premiere: Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano (David Talmadge [vn] and Stuart Ross [pf]), at Carnegie Chamber Music Hall, New York City
1934: Premiere:Hallowe’en, The Pond, and The Gong on the Hook and Ladder (unidentified chamber orchestra, cond. by Albert Stoessel), at Alvin Theatre, New York. Premiere: song Vita(Robison [first name and voice type unidentified] with an unidentified pianist), at Boston, Mass.
1976: Premiere: Four Ragtime Dances, No. 1 (Chamber Orchestra of New England, cond. by James Sinclair), in Sprague Memorial Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Apr 23  1564: Birth of poet and playwright William Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon, England. Shakespeare texts used by Ives include songs A Sea Dirge and Spring Song.
1940: Premiere: song "1, 2, 3" (Theodore Uppmann [Bar] and Ralph Berkowitz [pf]), at The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Penn.
1953: First publication: Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, New York: Peer International

Apr 24  1943:Ives records ten sides at the Mary Howard Recordings studio, New York, including these first recordings: March No. 6 for Piano, "The Alcotts" mvt. of Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass., Study No. 9: The   Anti-Abolitionist Riots, and the songThey Are There! (Charles Ives [Bar/pf]), released in 1974 by Columbia Records and by CRI in 1999.

Apr 25  1949: Premiere: piano Three-Page Sonata (William Masselos [pf]), at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Apr 26  1953: Premiere: Symphony No. 1 (National Gallery Orchestra, cond. by Richard Bales), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
1963: Premiere: From the Steeples and the Mountains (by a student ensemble, cond. by Wayne Shirley), at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.
1965: Premiere: Symphony No. 4 [complete work] (American Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Leopold Stokowski assisted by David Katz and José Serebrier), at Carnegie Hall, New York City

Apr 27  1894: Birth of Ives friend and conductor Nicolas Slonimsky at St. Petersburg, Russia. Slonimsky conducted the premieres of Three Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1), Set for Theatre Orchestra (mvts. i & iii), and choral December and The New River.

Apr 28  1936: Birth of Ives editor Wayne Shirley. Shirley has edited The Fourth of July[mvt. iii of "Holidays Symphony"] and mvt. iv of Symphony No. 4 and conducted for the premiere of From the Steeples and the Mountains (26 Apr 1963).
1939: Premiere: songWest London (Frederick Tooley [Bar] and John Kirkpatrick [pf]), at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Apr 29  1909: Date in memo added later to chamber ens Like a Sick Eagle [mvt. iv ofSet No. 1]; Harmony Ives at hospital (miscarriage and hysterectomy).
1930: Ives hears Leon Theremin demonstrate his Aetherophone ("Ether organ" or "theremin") in a concert at Carnegie Hall, New York City
1949: Premiere: song Memories (Alta Shultz [A] and T. Carl Whitmer [pf]), at Pittsburgh, Penn.
1965: First recording: Symphony No. 4 (The American Symphony Orchestra, Schola Cantorum of New York, cond. by Leopold Stokowski assisted by David Katz and José Serebrier; issued in 1965 by Columbia Records)

Apr 30  1893: Premiere: song Rock of Ages (Isabelle Raymond [Contralto] and Charles Ives [pf or org]), at the Baptist Church, Danbury, Conn.
1916: Birth of conductor Robert Shaw at Red Bluff, Calif. Shaw conducted the premieres of choral Matthew   Arnold (Overture) and Three Harvest Home Chorales.