Universe Symphony
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The Universe Symphony is an unfinished work by American classical music composer Charles Ives.
The date of composition is unknown, but he probably worked on it periodically between 1911 and 1928. Intended to be a "spatial" composition for two or more orchestras, it is in three sections:
- Part 1, "Past: Formation of the waters and mountains"
- Part 2, "Present: Earth, evolution in nature and humanity"
- Part 3, "Future: Heaven, the rise of all to the Spiritual".
He conceived the idea during the autumn of 1915 while he was staying in the Adirondacks of New York State. He left it alone until 1923, when he returned to working on it. Although he spent many years on it, many of the sketches are missing. During the 1990s there were three separate performing versions assembled, including a version by D. Porter (1993), L. Austin (1994), and J. Reinhard (1996).
It is a complex work, using 20 independent musical lines; each moves in a separate meter, only coinciding on downbeats eight seconds apart. Ives said of it: "[it] is a striving to ... trace with tonal imprints the vastness, the evolution of all life ... from the great roots of life to the spiritual eternities, from the great inknown to the great unknown."
Source
- "Charles Ives", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
- J. Peter Burkholder: "Charles Ives", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed May 1, 2005), (subscription access) (http://www.grovemusic.com)