front cover of Charles Ives's Concord
Charles Ives's Concord
Essays after a Sonata
Kyle Gann
University of Illinois Press, 2021
In 1921, insurance executive Charles Ives sent out copies of a piano sonata to two hundred strangers. Laden with dissonant chords, complex rhythm, and a seemingly chaotic structure, the so-called Concord Sonata confounded the recipients, as did the accompanying book, Essays before a Sonata.

Kyle Gann merges exhaustive research with his own experience as a composer to reveal the Concord Sonata and the essays in full. Diffracting the twinned works into their essential aspects, Gann lays out the historical context that produced Ives's masterpiece and illuminates the arguments Ives himself explored in the Essays. Gann also provides a movement-by-movement analysis of the work's harmonic structure and compositional technique; connects the sonata to Ives works that share parts of its material; and compares the 1921 version of the Concord with its 1947 revision to reveal important aspects of Ives's creative process.

A tour de force of critical, theoretical, and historical thought, Charles Ives's Concord provides nothing less than the first comprehensive consideration of a work at the heart of twentieth century American music.

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front cover of Hymns / Inni
Hymns / Inni
Giuseppe Verdi
University of Chicago Press, 2007

This newest volume in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi series comprises his only two surviving secular choral works: Inno popolare, or Hymn of the People, for unaccompanied male chorus, and Inno delle nazioni, or Hymn of the Nations, for tenor solo, chorus, and orchestra.

Verdi wrote the brief Inno popolare in 1848 at the behest of the Italian philosopher and patriot Giuseppe Mazzini, intending that it become an anthem for Italy at a time when the country had just driven away its Austrian overlords. He wrote no more independent patriotic pieces until he was asked in 1861 to represent his country with a patriotic composition at a musical jubilee during London’s International Exhibition of 1862. The resulting piece was Inno delle nazioni, the critical edition of which is based on Verdi’s autograph score, preserved at the British Library.  Other important sources include the composer's musical sketches, recently discovered in the Verdi family villa, and the performing parts Toscanini used for a BBC broadcast in 1943.

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