December | Charles Ives Society

	1894	Date on manuscript: song A Christmas Carol "before 1898"; letter: "around 1894"
	1896	First publication: song A Scotch Lullaby, New Haven: Yale Courant 33/5 (Dec, Third Week)
	1897	Date on manuscript: song No More
	1901	choral Processional: Let There Be Light dedicated to Central Presbyterian Church, New York City
	1901	Premiere: lost organ Piece for Communion Service (Charles Ives, org), at Central Presbyterian Church. While at Central Presbyterian Church, Ives composed this and several organ works that went into his Symphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting and conducted the premiere of his cantata The Celestial Country.
	1909	Date on manuscript: song A Farewell to Land, sketch—"70 W. 11" [New York City]
	1924	Edith Ives writes words and tune of her song Christmas Carol which was then set by Ives himself.
	1932	First publication: Seven Songs. Cos Cob Press. Aaron Copland selected these seven songs from Ives’s 114 Songs and accompanied at the piano the premiere at Saratoga Springs, NY (1 May 1932) with baritone Herbert Linscott: Charlie Rutlage, Evening, The Indians, Maple Leaves, The See’r, Serenity, and Walking.
	1962	First recording: piano Three-Page Sonata (Luise Vosgerchian; issued in 1963 by Cambridge Records); song Nov. 2, 1920 (An Election) and Religion (Corinne Curry [S] and Luise Vosgerchian [pf]; issued in 1963 by Cambridge)
Dec 1	1897	Premiere: choral The Bells of Yale (Yale Glee Club) at Hoyt’s Opera House, South Norwalk, Conn.
	1950	First recording: Sonata No. 1 for Piano (William Masselos [pf], for Columbia Records, issued 1953)
	1975	First recording: song Weil’ auf mir [German text] (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau [Bar] and Michael Ponti [pf]; issued in 1976 by Deutsche Grammophon)
Dec 2	1991	First recording: choral The Bells of Yale (Henry Herford [Bar], men’s voices and members of Ensemble Modern, cond. by Ingo Metzmacher; issued in 1992 by EMI Classics)
Dec 5	1934	First recording: songs General William Booth and God Bless and Keep Thee (Radiana Pazmor [S] and Genevieve Pitot [pf], for New Music Quarterly Recordings, issued in 1935)

Dec 6	1949	First publication: Tone Roads No. 1, New York: Peer International
	1962	Premiere: Chromâtimelôdtune [Schuller realization] and Set No. 3 (by a pick-up chamber orchestra, cond. by Gunther Schuller), at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City
Dec 7	1931	Premiere: "In the Night" [mvt. iii of Set for Theatre Orchestra] (Saint Paul Chamber Music Society ensemble, cond. by John J. Becker), at St. Thomas College Auditorium, St. Paul, Minn.
Dec 8	1932	Premiere: song The New River (Mary Bell [S] and Henry Cowell [pf]), at Musikhalle, Kleiner Saal, Hamburg, Germany
Dec 10	1822	Birth of César Franck at Liége, France. Ives admired the honest religiosity of Franck’s music and quoted his Symphony in D Minor in three related songs: The Song of the Dead, The Ending Year, and The Waiting Soul.
	1908	Birth of pianist (and composer) Olivier Messiaen at Avignon, France. Messiaen was the accompanist for the world premiere in Paris of a group of Ives’s songs, 5 March 1936, with singer Victor Prahl: The Innate, Majority, Paracelsus, Requiem, and Resolution.
	1913	Birth of conductor (and composer) Morton Gould at New York City. Gould and the Chicago Symphony made the first recordings of Symphony No. 1 and Orchestral Set No. 2 (also premiere of the latter).
	1947	First publications: piano Study No. 22 and "Three Protests" [from Varied Air and Variations], in New Music
Dec 11	1974	First recording: Orchestral Set No. 1: Three Places in New England [Sinclair version for large orchestra] (Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. by Eugene Ormandy; issued in 1976 by RCA)
	1978	Premiere: Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Piano [Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day, and Thanksgiving in John Kirkpatrick’s reconstruction] (Daniel Stepner [vn], John Kirkpatrick [pf]), in the Music Building, State University of New York, College at Purchase, Purchase, NY
Dec 12	1895	Ives plays his interlude on BETHANY [Interludes for Hymns, no. 2], at Center Church, New Haven, Conn. Ives used BETHANY prominently in his song Down East.
	1901	Premiere: lost organ Prelude [II] (Charles Ives, org), at Central Presbyterian Church (developed into mvt. i of Symphony No. 3)
	1928	Premiere: piano Thoreau [mvt. iv of Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass.] (Clifton Furness [pf]), at Hartford, Conn.
Dec 13	1797	Birth of poet Heinrich Heine at Düsseldorf, Germany. Ives used Heine poems for songs Du bist wie eine Blume, Frühlingslied, Gruss, Ich grolle nicht, Die Lotosblume, and two versions of My Native Land.
Dec 14	1902	Date on manuscript: song Her Eyes "put in [song] Mirage"
Dec 15	1912	Date on manuscript: choral Matthew Arnold Overture, sketch —"7 night job [completed]!" The overture is used, in part, in the song West London.
Dec 16	1770	Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven at Bonn, Germany. Ives greatly admired Beethoven’s music, creativity and strength. Among the several Beethoven pieces from which Ives borrowed, most important is Symphony No. 5 (Emerson Overture/Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass., piano Study No. 9: The Anti-Abolitionist Riots, The Celestial Railroad, and Four Transcriptions from "Emerson").
	1901	Premiere: lost Largo for Violin and Organ (William Haesche [vn] and Charles Ives [org]), at Central Presbyterian Church, New York City (which went into Largo for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano)
Dec 20	1914	Date on manuscript: Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano "ended"
	1963	Premiere: Tone Roads No. 3 and Scherzo: Over the Pavements (Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble, cond. by James Tenney), at the New School Auditorium, New York City
Dec 21	1908	Date on manuscript: Robert Browning Overture, sketch of mm. 107–140—"70 W. 11"
	1987	First recording: songs The All-Enduring and Song (Jan DeGaetani [Mez] and Gilbert Kalish [pf]; issued in 1988 by Nonesuch Records)
		Winter solstice (annual): song/choral December
Dec 22	1978	First recording: Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Piano [Washington’s Birthday, Decoration Day, Thanksgiving in the Kirkpatrick reconstruction] (Daniel Stepner [vn] with John Kirkpatrick [pf]; issued in 1982 by Music Masters)
Dec 24	1947	Birth of Ives editor, conductor, and band arranger Kenneth Singleton. Singleton is the editor for current or forthcoming publications of Symphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting, Symphony No. 4/iii, Postlude in F, Chromâtimelôdtune, Gyp the Blood or Hearst!? [mvt. ii of Set No. 2], chamber ens Mists, Evening, Remembrance, An Old Song Deranged, Set for Theatre Orchestra, March No. 2, with "Son of a Gambolier", March No. 3, with "My Old Kentucky Home", and choral The Bells of Yale, The Boys in Blue, and A Song of Mory’s.
Dec 25	1642	Birth of naturalist philosopher Sir Isaac Newton near Grantham, England. Ives’s Universe Symphony contemplates the universe as Newton understood it and goes on to contemplate the expanding universe of Edwin Hubble.
	1886	Premiere: piano Minuetto, Op. 4 (Charles E. Ives? [pf]), location not specified. The earliest performable works of Ives are Holiday Quickstep and song Slow March (both of 1887).
	1887	Date on manuscript: Holiday Quickstep—[started] "Xmas '87"
	1888	Holiday Quickstep played at Methodist Sunday School program
	1898	Premiere: "Adeste Fideles" in an Organ Prelude (Charles Ives, org), at First Presbyterian Church, Bloomfield, New Jersey
	1903	Date on manuscript: Overture and March "1776" score-sketch [begun], "Danbury"
		Christmas (annual): Symphony No. 4, mvt. i; Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, mvt. iii; "Adeste Fideles" in an Organ Prelude; songs A Christmas Carol, Christmas Carol (Edith Ives’s), and Watchman
Dec 27	1931	Premiere: Decoration Day [mvt. ii of "Holidays Symphony"] (Orquesta Filarmónica de la Habana, cond. by Amadeo Roldán), at Teatro Nacional, Havana
	1945	Ives is elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters (along with William Schuman).
	1949	Premiere: songs Chanson de Florian, Lincoln, the Great Commoner, and The Rainbow (So May It Be!) (Harry Wayne [Bar] and Esther Lundell [pf]), at McMillin Theatre, Columbia University, New York City
Dec 28	1897	Date on manuscript: Symphony No. 1/iv, score-sketch [finished]
	1914	Date on manuscript: The Masses (Majority), date on p. 9 of score, "27 W. 11 [New York City"
Dec 29	1953	First publication: The Unanswered Question, New York: Southern Music Publishing Company
Dec 30	1865	Birth of poet Rudyard Kipling at Bombay, India. Ives used Kipling poems in a group of songs: The Love Song of Har Dyal, The Only Son, The Song of the Dead, Tarrant Moss, and Tolerance.
	1949	First publication"Adeste Fideles" in an Organ Prelude and Variations on "America", together, New York: Music Press