Ted Hearne’s Variations on Charles Ives

Last night Eric Dudley, Artistic Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), hosted the last installment of the year in the How Music is Made series. The topic of the program was Ted Hearne’s “‘The Cage’ Variations,” scored for six instruments (flute, clarinet doubling on bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion) and baritone solo. The “theme” behind the variations is Charles Ives’ song “The Cage.”

A portion of the single page of “The Cage” (screen shot from the video being discussed)

Setting Ives’ own words, “The Cage” is one of Ives’ most enigmatic compositions (which, in the context of the entire catalog of his works, is definitely saying something). The entire composition fits on a single page with almost no bar lines; and, in the Albany Records The Complete Songs of Charles Ives anthology, the track for “The Cage” lasts 45 seconds. The text consists of only a few phrases, which might be taken as the shortest shaggy dog story on record:

A leopard went around his cage from one side back to the other side; he stopped only when the keeper came around with meat; A boy who had been there three hours began to wonder, “Is life anything like that?”

The accompaniment is a rhythmically ambiguous sequence of dissonant chords, many of which seem to defy the limited capacity of a pair of human hands.

The SFCMP performance presented only seven of the twelve variations that Hearne composed. (The last of the variations is actually the Ives original.) However, if the Ives song forms the “theme” for the variations, Hearne notes that the music “is constructed entirely from shards of works by other contemporary American composers -- all composers born within 10 years of myself.” Halfway through the performance, Dudley interpolated one of those sources, Molly Joyce’s “Blue Swell,” composed for solo violin (Hrabba Atladottir) and a pre-recorded organ accompaniment.

It is probably advantageous that last night’s video stream has now been saved as a YouTube file, because, like most of Ives’ compositions, both the Hearne and Joyce offerings will probably benefit from multiple listening experiences. Several of the variations performed involved Hearne singing Ives’ vocal line against different instrumental settings. Thus, by the end of the concert, those unfamiliar with the Ives song were well prepared to listen to the composer’s original version in Hearne’s final variation.

Ultimately, however, it sometimes felt as if Hearne had decided to take an enigmatic source and make it more enigmatic. Fortunately, it was easy to accept his efforts as playful ones. (Had they been otherwise, the variations would have run the gamut from pretentious to tedious!) In his introductory remarks, Dudley made it clear that he was enthusiastic about the many ways in which Ives could be boldly unconventional, and at least some of that enthusiasm spilled over into his conducting work for Hearne’s composition.

My own perspective is that of an Ives junkie: unabashed, unashamed, and uncompromising. I found that I could relish Hearne’s point of view and Dudley’s realization of that perspective in performance. I should have no trouble revisiting this video as much as I revisit the many Ives recordings in my collection.