The Things our Fathers Loved is packed with dissonance and erratic rhythms, which leads the listener to wonder whether Ives, like certain German musical geniuses, was in fact deaf. Every line seemed to have a different melody and rhythm, and they seem to just flow absentmindedly into each other (one example is at 0:54). In fact, each line seems so different that they would make more sense as independent songs than as an ensemble.

The melodies, though sporadic and dissonant, are very complex. From earlier, we know that Ives is capable of creating polytonality with different “voices” in his compositions. One can recall the various discordant members of the marching band in the Putnam’s Camp. Here, I think Ives could be achieving the same things, adding a few dissonant melodies together to create (~1:12). However, I’m not sure as to how this relates to the lyrics, or whether it should.

I found Ives’ The Things our Fathers Loved to offer a very rewarding listening experience. I particularly liked the first half, in which the voice and the piano interact in a sometimes more and sometimes less consonant way. The general atmosphere of irresolution made the few moments of consonance more salient. In general, I found the suspension of tonal expectations particularly in this stretch of music to have the effect of enriching my experience of the music’s development. Perhaps this sense is intensified by the music’s tendency to move from the more dysphoric mood of the beginning to the ecstatic recollections of the singer.

This shift toward a more excited affect is realized in part through a more upbeat piano section that intensifies in volume as the piece reaches its end. At the same time, the piano part includes more and more dissonant chords that feel drive the music more at a rhythmic level than a melodic one. At the end of the piece, the mood becomes more depressed once again, as if from exhaustion. The tempo slows drastically and the piano part communicates a much bleaker affect.

Overall, the experience is not one of joy, though it is quite multi-dimensional. Ives’ polytonality enables him to express the whole range of emotions, as well as a kind of rich, affective ambiguity. His use of different rhythmic features in the first and second part of the piece is also used quite effectively for expressive purposes.

Listening to Gershwin’s original composition of “Summertime” (i.e. not one of the countless covers done in the style of the popular jazz standard), I was struck by how masterfully Gershwin was able to blend together various musical genres. This deftness lies in subtlety of the composition. Being more familiar with the jazz version popularized by Billie Holiday, the rhythm of the original composition really stuck out to me in that it didn’t have that same march-like, syncopated rhythm. The tempo is slow enough that at times in vocal line it is almost impossible to feel the meter. However, there are moments where Gershwin gently incorporates the elements of African American musical styles of the late 19^th/ early 20^th century. For example, in the brief introduction a clarinet plays descending notes in a minor key before alternating between two notes that a sort of “pulse” for the piece. This pulse is accented in between the notes by some type of chime that creates a slow orchestral syncopation.  That same pulse plays into the lullaby effects of the piece. One can imagine gently rocking a baby to the beat.

The mixture of African American musical genres with operatic/orchestral forms reminds me of Die Walküre. Like Wagner, Gershwin bases the opera on something culturally relevant, in his case an African American folk tale. In doing this, he is able to create an opera that is characteristic of both time and place – America, in the early 20^th century. He allows this setting to influence the music. In summertime we see this with the rhythm, as I discussed, but also in the vocal styling; the singer uses “blue notes,” and also syncopates rhythm at parts (like on the word “jumpin’”). Altogether, these elements come together in a very nuanced manner, creating a very distinct sound.

“Summertime” is the opening aria in Gershwin’s opera “Porgy & Bess,” which portrays several black characters living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. The song itself is a lullaby for the singer’s baby, and the lyrics speak of prosperity and security: “The livin’ is easy / Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high / Your daddy’s rich, and your momma’s good lookin’ / So hush little baby, don’t you cry.” As several other people have pointed out, the song is highly ironic: the singer and baby are poor and black during the Jim Crow era, and thus, the lyrics offer false comfort. When I listened to it with that context, the song sounded like a lament: the tempo is slow, the key is minor, and the singer sings at a soft volume for most of the piece.

In addition to irony, the song’s musical characteristics also give it a dreamy and fantastic affect–both reflecting the laziness of a summer evening (where the opera opens) and the singer dreaming of a better life. For starters, the opening instrumental music (0:00-0:21) strongly reminded me of Debussy’s “Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune”—the key and tempo are indeterminate and free, which gives a sense of mystery or fantasy (like a dream sequence in a movie). Then, once the singing begins, the strings play a very simple rising and falling melody that lasts for most of the song (e.g., 0:22-0:34). The meter of the melody gently rocks back and forth—which is fitting, since the song is a lullaby. Moreover, although Gershwin uses lots of dissonance in both the vocal and instrumental melodies, it isn’t a harsh dissonance, like the “cry of despair” in Mahler’s symphony. Rather, it’s more like the dissonance in Debussy’s piece, which sounds magical and mysterious: for instance, at “And the livin’ is easy” (0:33-0:39) and “And the cotton is high” (0:49-0:57), the singer and orchestra drop into a dissonant melody, which sounds more fantastic or dreamlike than tragic or unsettling. Another such example comes toward the end of the piece around 2:46-3:03, where the singer is joined by a chorus on “by” (in “with your daddy and your mammy standin’ by”): the melody soars, then falls slowly, changing to various chords along the way. Although some are dissonant, the overall affect of this section is, again, dreamlike and fantastic.

Thus, while the lyrics in “Summertime” are certainly ironic and tragic in one sense, Gershwin also portrays the sleepiness of a summer evening and the dreams of the singer by employing a steady, slow rhythm and “magical”-sounding dissonance.

(Sources: Porgy & Bess libretto, http://www.philipp-harnoncourt.com/Libretto%20PORGY%20AND%20BESS,%20engl.%20u.%20deutsch%20(P.H.).pdf)

While this is a very short composition in comparison with others that we have listened to so far, I believe that Ives is able to pack a lot of emotion in to a small work. The piece is carried by only one male vocalist and one piano. The track begins with a smooth and gentle playing that feels as if we are being transported back in time to a memory of Ives’. The male voice displays a strength yet a great control of a prominent male figure in this memory. Up to this point it almost doesn’t sound like any of Ives’ works that we have studied up to now. Suddenly, there is a great shift in the music and it is much more lively  and you begin to hear a lot of dissonance and discord that are characteristics of Ives’ works. You are almost able to visualize this man walking down the street as he passes all the daily activity of the local people on “main street.” It’s as if Ives is taking us down this street with him. Then without any obvious forewarning we are brought back to a very emotional and nostalgic vocal, the dissonance ends and the track is concluded smoothly. Through this composition Ives is able to transport us to his town and give a great taste of the American society from his point of view.

In Ives and Gershwin’s pieces, there seems to a common theme of music corresponding to the expression of a culture, and a common contrast to that culture based on the composers’ personal styles.

Ives “The Things Our Fathers Loved” is comprised of a soloist and a piano accompaniment. The text of the song discusses everyday aspects of colloquial life in Ives life, as well as a strong nationalist expression. After reading about the piece, I found out that different parts of the piece reflected various contemporary songs. Ives is expressing the American culture he experienced in his piece by these expressions and the lyrics. However, the traditional music is contrasted by Ives take on music, and seems to incorporate dissonance and discord, much like the march we listened to earlier in the semester. The pieces Ives references reflect his style, which results in a contrast between his style and the full expression of American culture. Ultimately, Ives seeks to capture the zeitgeist of his society in a nostalgic, dissonant tone.

Gershwin follows a similar theme to Ives in “Summertime”. The song is an aria sung multiple times throughout the Opera Porgy & Bess, and is a lullaby sung to a baby at the beginning. The opera also hired African American singers to maintain a sense of cultural accuracy in the opera. Gershwin seems to try and capture the culture in African American society, using pentatonic scales (which I found out are scales where the octave is composed of five notes”. The pentatonic is incorporated from the very beginning, with the ascending line of the horns and the descending line of the clarinet. The scale evokes a folky, bluesy feel seeking to reflect the culture as Ives does. However, there is a strong contrast between the lyrics, which are bright and comforting, and the music, which is very much gloomy. At 3:10, the song takes a very up tempo turn, which I think reflects the game of craps that is being played right after the soloist is done singing. Overall, Gershwin follows this theme of capturing a culture, and including contrasts that reflect the composers’ respective style.

Gershwin’s “Summertime” unites elements considered both classical and contemporary. I did not even know Billie Holiday’s “Summertime” was a cover from Porgy and Bess, and it is difficult to believe, after listening to her recording, that this was extracted from an opera.

Gershwin employs the aria but combines jazz elements that make it sound more song-like. The slow harmonic line and minor tonality add a “blues” vibe to the song, and the necessary vocal range to sing this song is so extreme that I cannot even imagine how difficult it is to sing!

The song is opened with the sound of trumpets, and the fragment almost sounds like Hunding’s leitmotif in Die Walküre, which is transformed into a two-note melody played by the clarinet that is subsequently repeated by other instruments. Once the singing begins, we can still hear the underlying repetitive melody, almost rocking the baby to sleep.

However, despite the underlying melody, it is still difficult to believe that “Summertime” is a lullaby. The two-note melody seems to be battling with the rest of the instruments and eventually loses. Gershwin sets up another juxtaposition between a higher pitch, “Summertime…,” and a lower pitch, “easy.” Ironically, the “high” in the “cotton is high” is sung in the lower pitch.

Furthermore, the minor tonality and the accompanying lyrics are far from cheery lullabies. She sings to her baby to wait until his arrival in Heaven; but, in the meantime, nothing will harm him “with your daddy and mammy standing by.” However, the “by” almost sounds like a scream, offering little reassurance that no harm will occur.

The feeling of nostalgia is characteristic of Ives’ “The Things Our Fathers Loved.” Similar to Three Places in New England, this piece transplants the listener to a different time and place. The opening line, “I think there must be a place in the soul all made of tunes, of tunes of long ago,” is representative of his music’s objective. Ives is attempting to extract the listener and bring him into a specific time and location through music.

“The Things Our Fathers Loved” begins, already with marked dissonance, slowly. Rather than saying, “I know,” Ives writes, “I think,” and the opening is demonstrative of his uncertainty. He almost presents his hypothesis with this timid opening, the polar opposite of the opening of “Putnam’s Camp,” and proves it gradually over the course of the piece.

The singing and the accompanying piano paint the scene for us. When he sings, “Aunt Sarah humming Gospels,” the rise in pitch and softer singing prompt us to imagine gospel music, while the softer singing and lighter piano accompaniment that follow provoke images of “summer evenings.”

A cadence between “summer evenings” and “the village cornet band” mark a stark shift in mood. While previously painting a picture for us, Ives now is eliciting a more abstract sentiment: American nationalism. The music almost resembles a potential anthem. However, there is still a remarkable number of dissonances accompanying the music but unlike the introduction, it does not elicit a gloomy and doubtful sentiment. Rather, Ives is representing the struggle and fight, through which “our Fathers” suffered.

However, the shift in mood is only temporary, and Ives returns to the slower melodic line of the opening. The final note is remarkably dissonant and is the last thing heard in the piece. It restates the feelings of nostalgia.

“Summertime” is an aria written by Gershwin for his folk opera Porgy and Bess. The song incorporates jazz elements and classical styles from opera. From the very beginning of the song, Gershwin communicates to listeners that there is a clear tension between the subject matter (summer time) and the execution of the song. In other words, he shows us in a few ways that what is actually being sung in “Summertime” is not reflective of reality.

Usually when you think of summer time (especially summer time in the south) you immediately think of the word “hot”. Therefore, I was initially expecting something with an immediate upbeat rhythm and cheerful melody that created feelings of happiness and excitement that are typically associated with the season. Yet, when you listen to “Summertime” it surprisingly sounds very “cool”. The song sounds very soothing and peaceful, as opposed to excited and fast paced. This “coolness” of affect is clearly intentional because the song is a lullaby that a mother is singing to her child. Gershwin creates this calm and peaceful affect through soothing vocals sung in minor (0:24), the slow-moving harmony which suggest elements of blues (0:34), and by the lyrics themselves (Summer Time/ And the livin’ is easy).

However, the execution of the song “summertime” is purposefully ironic, because the woman is singing about the peacefulness of summertime, but in the opera the residents of “Catfish Row” live a life that is anything but peaceful. She also mentions that her husband is rich, but in reality he is not and they actually live on the margins. Therefore, Gershwin reveals to us the “falseness” of what is being sung by communicating contradictions present in the opera itself, but also  by deliberately going against our expectations of what summer time should sound like. This is perhaps reinforced by the decision to make the song a lullaby. Lullabies are what parents sing to their children to create a peaceful environment and make them go to sleep, the truth is not supposed to be told in a lullaby. Yet the lullaby serves two purposes in Gershwin’s work: (1) it agrees with what is being said in the lyrics by depicting a peaceful melody, but (2) it also challenges the peace and happiness that is being communicated in the lyrics by creating a very sad affect that is at odd with happiness. In this way, Gershwin presents listeners with a challenge: the lullaby seems to agree with the reality depicted in the lyrics, but also functions to challenge it.

We do not get an upbeat melody that is perhaps more in line with what summer time sounds like until the very end of the song (3:16 – 3: 28). This instrumental segment functions as recitative and symbolizes the transition “back to reality” after the mother has finished singing to her child. One can imagine the characters scurrying around the stage, after the mother has just finished singing. Perhaps, this is another way that Gershwin is communicating the tension between what we expect to hear and what we actually hear. What’s also very interesting about Summer time is how differently the song sounds when it is sung in different vocal styles. In the version we listened to, Harolyn Blackwell intentionally sings in a low, soothing operatic voice. However, in other versions (such as the one by Ella Fitzgerald) we get a more jazzy style of singing that sounds much different from the “cool” lullaby sung by Blackwell.