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Selected Correspondence of Charles.

Article Excerpt
Ives. Edited by Thomas C. Owens. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. [ix, 400 p. ISBN-10 0520246063; ISBN-13 9780520246064. $45.] Illustrations, facsimiles, references, index.

In these days of hurried, often vacuous, e-mail messages and the presumption of intimacy, where one is called by one's first name from the outset, it is refreshing to read letters written with a certain deliber-ateness, civility, and formality, even if such qualities may strike one as somewhat quaint. Reading the correspondence of Charles Ives, written some fifty to a hundred years ago, gives us more than a glance into both the every day life and creative world of the man many consider to be America's greatest composer. While Ives will always remain an enigmatic figure in many ways, the opportunity to see another part of his world, through his letter writing, is helpful in gaming a more complete picture of this giant of a man who gave listeners and performers some of the most serene music ever composed as well as music of jolting dissonance.

Thomas C. Owens has added substantially to the world of Ives scholarship with this book. Owens previously edited sixty-one pieces of Ives's correspondence for Charles Ives and His World (J. Peter Burk-holder, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996]: pp. 199-270). Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives, given over to an additional 453 letters, most of which are new to this book, forms a valuable companion to his earlier work.

The portrait of Ives that emerges from these letters is quite different from the one that many hold of the composer. While there is no question that Ives remains the reticent, independent New Englander, eager...

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