American Classics - Charles Ives

2010

“The four violin and piano sonatas are at the core of Ives's chamber music output. The style oscillates because Ives was uncertain about his more radical visions and admitted he'd tried to compromise.
But this gives all four of them an enlarged frame of reference, saturated with quotations as usual, but relating to European sonata traditions as well. There's everything to savour from these performances on Naxos: lovely soft textures in the transcendental meditations, well recorded, and everything hectic is under control.
Warning: the distant violin in the second movement of No 1 isn't a balance fault – Ives specified that the pianist should overwhelm the defenceless muted violin! This is now the version to choose.”