Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question

Innovation itself manifests in the life and work of Charles Ives - one of the most extraordinary composers of Western music. In his body of music, he assimilated such a colorful varieties of mutually heterogeneous elements - such as - atonality, polytonality, dissonance, asymmetrical rhythms, and even jazz and ragtime! Ives didn't write pretty music though - by pretty I mean the sort of music admired by the so-called mass. However, he was keen in the belief that one day art and humanity will march together and that day "every man, while digging his potatoes, will breathe his own Epics, his own Symphonies (Opera if he likes)".

There goes the prologue! Anyway, the point I want to emphasize is the almost ontological change of Western music in the beginning of the 20th century and how Ives preconceived or rather prognosticated this crisis and confusion. The accepted idea is that Arnold Schoenberg was the first one to feel the air of atonality and started the mutation – gave up the struggle to preserve tonality - and gave birth to atonal/non-tonal music! But at the same time, in the new continent, Ives as an unheard and unknown composer was fully aware of the tonal crisis and created a metaphysical piece – The Unanswered Question - that is the ultimate representation of the conflict.

From the description, the piece looks relatively simple yet profound. The strings play pianissimo throughout with no change in tempo. They represent the silence of the druids - who know, see and hear nothing! The trumpet intones the perennial question of existence, and states it in the same tone of voice each time. The flutes represent the quest for the invisible answer and their music becomes gradually more active, faster and louder. The fight goes on - and at the end the question is asked for the last time - and then the silence/strings prevail. You better listen to the piece – there are many a recordings available – but the one conducted by Leonard Slatkin with Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra is the finest.

Now, is it really a metaphysical piece? Perhaps not! The significant fact about the strings is that they are purely tonal elements - the trumpet intermittently repeats the question - a non-tonal phrase - and each time it is answered by the flutes in a shapeless way – another non-tonal phrase. Though the question remains the same (almost) - the answers turn more and more obscure and the final answer emerges as utter gibberish. However, the strings maintain their tonal serenity throughout and they still remain as the question and the answer both evanesces!

So, is tonality seemingly everlasting - could be so - but the disturbing question - like a specter - still floats in the air and of course there is no answer other than silence and confusion! Leonard Bernstein explains in a beautiful way – “Do you see how clearly this piece spells out the dilemma of the new century – the dichotomy that was to define the shape of musical life from then and now? On the one hand, tonality and syntactic clarity; on the other, atonality and syntactic confusion.”

I really enjoy the words of Ives himself when he wrote – “Why tonality as such should be thrown out for good I can't see. Why it should always be present I can't see.”

Me neither!