 The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question (1908) is heard here in an alternate form, suggested by the composer. The English horn solo played by Derek Floyd, replaces the practically iconic trumpet, allowing for a new perspective through the practice of extend Pythagorean intonation. The tuning finally distinguishes a notated C# from a notated Db. Ives had always insisted that a C# is higher in pitch than a Db, and a B# is an eighthtone higher than a C. This is explicitly possible by spiraling the perfect fifths through 2 octaves. The composer wrote that the strings should be “off s tage” or away from the winds. The strings remain pianissimo representing "The Silences of the Druids Who Know, See and Hear Nothing." The English horn intones, according to Ives, "the Perennial Question of Existence" and states it in the same tone of voice each time. But the hunt for ‘The Invisible Answer’ undertaken by the flutes represents other human beings, becomes gradually more active, faster and louder through an ‘animando’ to a ‘con fuoco.’ Charles Ives (1885-1954) is America’s preeminent composer at the turn of the 20th century. Paolo Bellomia (Ottawa, Ontario) was guest conductor for the performance. Originally from Rome, Italy, Maestro Bellomia is a champion of contemporary music. He is currently working in Montreal, Canada where he directs the Montreal Conservatory Orchestra. |