Symphony No. 4 (Ives)

The Symphony No. 4, S. 4 (K. 1A4) by Charles Ives (1874–1954) was written between 1910 and the mid-1920s (the second movement "Comedy" was the last to be composed, most likely in 1924). The symphony is notable for its multilayered complexity—typically requiring two conductors in performance—and for its large and varied orchestration. Combining elements and techniques of Ives's previous compositional work, this has been called "one of his most definitive works"; Ives' biographer, Jan Swafford, has called it "Ives's climactic masterpiece."

The symphony is in four movements:

Although the symphony requires a large orchestra, the duration is only about half an hour.

This movement and the second movement were first performed in the Town Hall, New York City, on January 29, 1927 by 50 members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on a Pro Musica International Referendum Concert conducted by Eugene Goossens. While 50 players are sufficient for the chamber-like scoring of the first movement, the second movement in reality requires almost twice as many players, yet this was Ives's only experience of hearing any parts of the Symphony performed live. In contrast to Ives's other works for large orchestra, which begin in quiet and meditative moods, the first-movement Prelude starts with a strong, maestoso, fortissimo bassline, immediately followed by a rising trumpet fanfare. A quiet passage follows. The movement ends with chorus singing John Bowring's Epiphany hymn Watchman ("Watchman, tell us of the night"). Unlike the bold beginning, the movement dies away, quadruple-pianissimo, at the end.

Ives bases this "Comedy" movement on Hawthorne's story "The Celestial Railroad", itself a trope on John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It is an orchestral expansion—not merely a simple orchestration—of Ives's piano solo, The Celestial Railroad (ca. 1924). As such, the "Comedy" movement is a composition of the 1920s, and may represent one of Ives's last orchestral endeavors. It is his most extreme essay in overlapping thematic material, found also in his Holidays Symphony, but is most complex in its use of multimetrics and temporal dyssynchronies, and is compositionally his most complex orchestral work. Tunes quoted include "The Sweet By and By", "Beulah Land", "Marching Through Georgia", "Ye Christian Heralds", "Jesus, Lover of my Soul" and "Nearer, my God, to Thee". The disjunctive metrical and temporal complexity of this movement requires at least one additional conductor. The music builds to several riotous climaxes before ebbing away.

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