There is a long and noble tradition of one artist gathering inspiration from another, creating new works based on anothers' work. Borrowing from each other, translating into new media, expanding upon earlier themes, styles, settings, and subjects, writers, visual artists, musicians pay homage to the masters of the past and expand their own art through this process.

Charles Ives' Concord Sonata was inspired by the works of the 19th century Concord writers. This work is more fully called the Sonata No. 2 for Piano: Concord, Mass., 1840-60, and was composed between 1910-15. It is considered one of the masterworks of American music, placing both Ives and this country on the world map of classical music. It was once declared "the greatest music composed by an American" by critic Lawrence Gilman¹. Its movements are entitled Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts, and Thoreau. In this work, too, Ives makes frequent references to other musical works including Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and American hymns and ragtime music.

Ives' grandparents actually knew Emerson, having brought him to Danbury, CT to speak. He slept in the house in which Ives was later born. Ives' upbringing was infused with stories of Emerson and the Transcendentalists. Thoreau's writings on what constitutes music also had their influence. Ives' intuitive, emotionally-evocative, experimental approach to music is in keeping with their philosophies.

In turn, Henry Brant's Concord Symphony is based upon Ives' sonata. The composer considers it a rearrangement of the Ives' piece into symphonic form. The Ives sonata was very important to Brant, as he felt his "career was sparked by his exposure to Ives."² Brant spent 30 years on this orchestration and it premiered in 1995.

Though not all of us may be familiar with Henry Brant's name, he worked for years on radio, ballet and jazz groups, film scores and big-band arrangements so it is possible we've all heard his work, but did not know it. He has also made many experimental musical works, exploring "spatial" music, which distributes performers throughout the performance space. He has taught at Juillard, Columbia, Bennington, and is now at Stanford. He has won a Guggehneim Fellowship and the Prix Italia as well.³

And, as a part of the continued tradition of blending the old together in new ways, Brant's work is also filled with borrowed musical styles such as gamelan, jazz, african drummers/singers, and south Indian music. Modern as this may be, he does not, however, use electronic instruments or permit amplification of his work.⁴

1995's debut of the Concord Symphony in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, brought great admiration for the piece. It was called by one critic "...a major achievment, brilliantly orchestrated and surely one of the finest of all American symphonies."

We wish we could offer you a sound file of this work, but unfortunately we could not find any recordings of it. If you know of any, please contact us.

¹Kenneth Singleton, The Washington Post
²Kyle Gann, The Village Voice
³G. Schirmer, Inc./Associated Music Publishers, Inc.
⁴ibid