Catalogue

Summary:

“Berman, the president of the Ives Society, handles the exceptional variety of styles wonderfully; he doesn’t shrink away from difficult density, nor does he offer short shrift to melodic beauty” – The New York Times

“Berman plays the work with firm technique, considerable understanding of its nuances, pacing that seems intuitively right … a level of simplicity and understanding communicated with almost magical skill by the composer and by sensitive interpreters such as Berman” – Infodad

“… masterful playing … the warmest Concord Sonata on disc … a beautiful performance … from the very first note it is obvious we are in the hands of a master Ives interpreter … a thinking pianist with access to an ocean of emotional resources and a technique verging on the superhuman … a superb recording” – Fanfare

“[a] dutifully crafted, magnificently impassioned new recording” – Exclusive Magazine

“Berman possesses both the virtuosity and interpretative acumen to give the sonata one of its most compelling recordings to date … Berman’s Ives CD is one of my favorites thus far in 2024. Highly recommended” – Sequenza 21/

Celebrating the sesquicentenary of Charles Ives’ birth, New England-based pianist and Ives scholar nonpareil Donald Berman releases a recording of the composer’s “Concord Sonata” using his own newly prepared edition which reveals fresh insights into the iconic work. Berman’s immersion into Ives’ sound world began under the tutelage of pianist John Kirkpatrick who gave the New York premiere of the “Concord Sonata” in 1939. Throughout many years of study and reflection, Berman discovered numerous notes and alterations that Ives made within the Concord’s manuscript pages, each one “a step toward realising his vision for a three-dimensional auditory experience.” Berman concluded that the first movement of the Concord, as Ives imagined it, is quite different than today’s commonly accepted version; his new edition includes two pages worth of material, masterfully recorded here for the first time.

The album opens with the elegiac “The St. Gaudens (Black March)”, referring to the eponymous sculpture in the Boston Common that depicts the Massachusetts 54^th, the first Union army regiment of African American soldiers, that is known widely in its orchestral version as the first movement of Ives’ Three Places in New England.

Tracklist: