American Classics - Ives Symphony No. 2

2010

“Ives's Second Symphony isn't as well served on CD as might be expected. Bernstein gave the premiere in 1951 some 40 years after the work's composition. What's new about this Nashville release is that it uses Jonathan Elkus's edition made for the Charles Ives Society for both works.
The main difference for the listener is that the exposition of the second movement of the Symphony is repeated. That this helps the overall balance in this extended, somewhat repetitive movement is debatable. When it comes to Bernstein, he quite unnecessarily cut 16 measures from the last movement. His tempos may be considered slow in the third and fourth movements, but in both his recordings the work luxuriates in a way that nobody else achieves.
The Robert Browning Overture is one of Ives' most visionary pieces, with declamatory trumpet parts that make Scriabin's Poème de l'extase seem reticent. The mystical calm of the opening is memorably caught in the Nashville performance; the energetic passages are vivid, although some textures inevitably get submerged. It's a great relief to have the obvious errors in the score corrected. This puts earlier recordings such as Stokowski's beyond the pale and it's well worth buying this CD for the Browning Overture alone, although both works in these carefully considered editions make a bargain pair.”