Reading Charles Ives

查尔斯伊韦斯（1874-1954）是美国第一位重要的作曲家。自1974年他的百年诞辰以来，有关他的生活和工作的知识已经大大扩展，导致了艾维斯学术文献的大量增加。伊韦斯已成为一个备受讨论的人物，也是普遍兴趣，特别是大学教学和研究的焦点。然而，新材料的数量之多却矛盾地导致了对它的理解的减少，尤其是因为人们对伊韦斯维斯浪漫主义和二十世纪中的地位的看法发生了变化，以及关于他的作品的年代的争议。因此，关于伊韦斯的早期、“默认”、准神话来源（所有这些来源都可以追溯到大约1930-1960年期间）的持续依赖，而不是采用自1985年以来出现的更微妙、更复杂的观点。正如一位学者在评论《查尔斯伊韦斯读本》的新书提案时所说，“事实上，对伊韦斯和他的音乐有许多不同的评价。在他作曲的一生中，伊韦斯几乎完全被音乐界和评论界所忽视。在20世纪20年代，他的三部主要作品自行出版后，他的作品开始引起人们的注意，尤其是来自亨利·考威尔等作曲家的注意，他们当时在作曲光谱的更激进的一端工作。因此，正如J.彼得·伯克霍尔德（J. Peter Burkholder）在1988年所言，伊韦斯可能是在试图“不辜负考威尔和其他人对他的伟大创新者的印象”。与早期作品中描绘的形象形成鲜明对比--无论是伊韦斯还是他的支持者亨利·贝拉曼--他否认过去，而是强调他独立于现有的传统。当然，伊韦斯深受他的前辈和同时代人的音乐影响：许多研究表明，他深受德沃夏克、柴可夫斯基、霍雷肖帕克和德彪西等作曲家的影响。但由于在20世纪30年代，“现代主义者”伊韦斯很难与这种“保守”的影响联系在一起，他否认了这些影响，而是（用伯克霍尔德的话说）“将自己的独创性归功于父亲乔治--不仅是他对多调性和四分之一调性等个人技巧的使用，而且是思想开放的立场使他如此具有独创性。尽管伯克霍尔德、布洛克、舍伍德和其他人的学术研究从公元前2000年开始出现，但这种准神话的“现代主义”形象一直持续到今天。1985年，从多个角度质疑伊韦斯早期的声誉。该项目旨在扭转这种局面，通过整理一卷约60个主要和次要的文本由或约伊韦斯，每一个完全上下文通过新写的关键编辑介绍，评论和注释。总体目标是出版一本内容丰富（10万字）的书-其中约3万字是新写的材料-这本书将加强并全面更新对20世纪美国文化中一位关键人物的知识和理解。再次引用上面引用的学者的话，“学生们需要对作曲家做大量的阅读，这往往是分散在一个不切实际的数量来源：在许多支持它的论点，这本书将消除这种障碍. [the社论]的评论将提供一个宝贵的批评声音和一个有用的叙事线索。因此，简而言之，该项目将导致对查尔斯伊韦斯及其作品的真正当代的“阅读”。

Charles Ives (1874-1954) was America's first composer of significance. Since his centenary in 1974, knowledge concerning his life and work has expanded enormously, resulting in a huge increase in the Ivesian scholarly literature. Ives has become a much-discussed figure, and a focus of both general interest and, particularly, university teaching and research. However, the sheer volume of new material has paradoxically led overall to a lessening of understanding, not least because of the changing views of Ives's position vis-à-vis Romanticism and the twentieth century, and the controversy concerning the dating of his compositions. Consequently, there is a continued reliance on the earlier, 'default,' quasi-mythological sources concerning Ives, all of which date from the approximate period 1930-1960, rather than the adoption of the more nuanced and complex views that have emerged since 1985. As one scholar put it, commenting on the book proposal for The Charles Ives Reader, 'in reality, there are many and different assessments of Ives and his music.'During his compositional lifetime Ives was almost totally ignored by the musical and critical establishment. Following the self-publication during the 1920s of three major texts, his work began to attract attention, not least from composers such as Henry Cowell who were at that time working at the more radical end of the compositional spectrum. Thus, as J. Peter Burkholder suggested in 1988, Ives may have been attempting 'to live up to the image Cowell and others had of [him] as a great innovator.' In striking contrast to the image painted in earlier writings--whether by Ives or his supporter Henry Bellamann--he denies the past and instead stresses his independence from existing traditions. Ives was, of course, very much influenced by the music of his precursors and contemporaries: a number of studies have demonstrated his indebtedness to such composers as Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Horatio Parker, and Debussy. But because it was inconvenient in the 1930s for the 'modernist' Ives to be identified with such 'conservative' influences, he disavowed them and instead (in Burkholder's words) 'credited his originality to his father George--not just his use of individual techniques such as polytonality and quarter-tones, but the very stance of open-mindedness that made him so original.' It is this quasi-mythological 'modernist' image that persists to the present day, despite the scholarship of Burkholder, Block, Sherwood, and others, that has emerged since ca. 1985, and which has questioned from multiple perspectives Ives's earlier reputation. This project aims to reverse the situation, by collating in a single volume approximately 60 primary and secondary texts by or about Ives, each fully contextualised through newly written critical editorial introductions, commentaries, and annotations. The overall objective is the publication of a substantial (100,000-word) book--of which approximately 30,000 words will be newly written material--which will enhance, and bring fully up to date, knowledge and understanding concerning a key figure in twentieth-century American culture. Again quoting the scholar cited above, 'students need to do substantial reading on the composer that is oftentimes scattered across an impractical number of sources: among many arguments in its favor, this book would eliminate that impediment...[the editorial] remarks will contribute a valuable critical voice and a useful narrative thread.' In short, therefore, the project will result in a genuinely contemporary 'reading' of Charles Ives and his work.