Unlike most other holidays, I don’t really have a lot of music that I go out of my way to hear on Memorial Day.  Wondering what people were listening to across the country, I visited a bunch of radio websites and found plenty of Americana, and a few requiems on the playlists.  Vermont Public Radio cleverly programmed Beethoven’s Third, the “Eroica,” which the composer famously dedicated to the “memory of a great man” (that be his former hero, Napoleon, whom Beethoven had written off in disgust when the Frenchman appointed himself Emperor).  All of these are fine choices, but for me, they don’t really capture the mood of the day.

But there’s one piece of music that really does.  Perfectly, too.  It’s Charles Ives’s “Decoration Day,” the second movement of A Symphony: New England Holidays. The Great American composer wrote the symphony in the early days of the 20th century, and each holiday (the other movements being “Washington’s Birthday,” “the Fourth of July,” and “Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day”) captures the special feelings and associations of a particular season.  “Decoration Day,” scored in 1912-13, is the spring movement, and the name of the movement comes from what Memorial Day was originally called.  Decoration Day was established after the Civil War.  As the official government order put it, “The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”  Eventually, the holiday was moved to the last Monday in May, and called Memorial Day, in honor of those who died in all America’s wars.

The cemetery next to Claverack Town Park.

To this day, Charles Ives (1874- 1954) has retained his reputation as one of the leading musical mavericks our country has ever produced.  He was a visionary and innovator; a tireless experimenter who used advanced musical language way ahead of its time.  For some people’s tastes, he was also a bit of a crackpot.

But that’s what makes him so much fun to listen to – like a favorite, eccentric uncle that you don’t always understand but who always tells a compelling story.  For Ives, just about everything was suitable material for a musical work.  Snippets of march tunes, and hymns, and popular songs swirl around in his scores, often rising to a chaotic roar that conveys all the messy energy of the American character.

Ives “Decoration Day” lasts less than ten minutes, but in a short time it covers a lot of ground, beginning, as Ives described in detail, with the mysterious quiet of the morning woods and gardens around the village as people gather flowers to take to the cemetery.  The mood is subdued, though pierced at times with intense emotion, as the crowd moves down Main Street towards the cemetery (listen for bits of “Battlecry of Freedom” and “Adestes Fideles” along the way). When all is done, and Taps are played, the band bursts into a brash march as everyone heads back to town – a classic Ives noisefest!  But it all ends as quietly as it began, with a hushed tone of reverential mystery.

Ives’ music can sound confusing, even annoying, at first (and even after you’ve heard it many times, but that’s partly what Ives intended).  The trick is to sit back and enjoy the ride and not try too hard to figure it all out.  After all, you don’t have to know how to make beer to get a buzz from it!

One last note:  if you want to read the composer’s detailed notes about Ives’s “Holiday” Symphony, visit http://www.musicweb.uk.net/ives/WK_Sym_Holidays.htm.

PLAYLIST

David Zinman recorded the “Holiday” Symphony with the Baltimore Symphony and it’s one of my favorite Ives albums.  Don’t feel guilty if you listen to only one holiday at a time – Ives’ intended each movement to also be playable separately.  It’s paired with another Ives classic, Three Places in New England.  Buy on Amazon.

Michael Tilson Thomas’s brilliantly programmed Ives: An American Journey, recorded with the San Francisco Symphony, is another must-have Ives album, a mix of orchestral, vocal and choral music performed with both affection and authority.  Two tracks on the album are particularly suited for Memorial Day spins.  Ives wrote the song “In Flanders Field” (track 10), sung with fervor by baritone Thomas Hampson, as a response to America entering World War I.  Ives was originally against the War, but he came to see America’s involvement as necessary, and the song captures the conflicting emotions of war as both patriotic duty and tragedy.  The Fugue to Ives’s Symphony No 4 (Track 13) – one of the greatest symphonies by an American composer – is deeply moving, a sea of hymn-tunes that rises to heights of profound expression.  Buy on Amazon.