Charles Ives Symphony No. 1

[adriano]

Dont' forget the Harold Farberman recording (he did all four Symphonies), made in the late sixies on Vanguard, which have also been reissued on CD. His timings are 13:05, 9:26, 3:46 and 11:17

[Alan Howe]

Davis' timings are: 13:08  7:37  5:01  13:53  (total 39:56 - which is slow.)

[alberto]

Memories of a remote era: a relatively young Zubin Mehta in the early seventies made a recording for Decca (coupled to Elgar's Enigma) with a very substantial cut in the finalw ("in order to make it more compact" said the booklet). Maybe it was in order to accomodate the symphony on one Lp side (the competitors as Gould or Ormandy had short fillers instead).

[sdtom]

Brits should really stay away from Ives.     Sounds weak and un-inspired.  He doesn't translate to "furriners".

If you had said the second symphony which oozes with Americana I would agree with you but the first is quite european in sound and style. As an example compare the second movement to Dvorak's slow movement as they both used an English Horn in a very similar way.
One can argue that this is a fine example of a first effort.

By the way Kuula welcome to the forum. I for one and I'm sure that others agree we welcome new comments and participation.
Tom