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Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History & Charles Ives: A Guide to Research.(Book Review)-

Article Excerpt
Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History. By Vivian Perils. Foreword by J. Peter Burkholder. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. [xxii, 237 p. ISBN 0-252-07078-X. $18.95.] Illustrations, index.

Charles Ives: A Guide to Research. By Gayle Sherwood. New York: Routledge, 2002. (Routledge Music Bibliographies.) [xxviii, 243 p. ISBN 0-815-33821-X. $85.] Indexes.

The appearance of these two books on Charles Ives in 2002 confirms the continuing resonance of this once-ignored composer in American musical thought. They join what has grown to become veritable shelves devoted to the life and music of one of the nation's most enigmatic and powerful artistic figures. Quite aside from the light they shed upon Ives himself, however, each provides insight into the various ways history is made, approached, and recorded.

Since its original Yale University Press publication in 1974 and the subsequent 1976 Norton Library edition, Vivian Penis's Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History has demonstrated what oral history can achieve, as well as what it can enable. Perlis recognized both the seminal importance of the composer in America's music history and the dwindling number...