Serebrier assists Stokie (and Ives)

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1965, the first complete performance of American composer Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 4 took place in New York.

38 years earlier, in 1927, also in New York, British conductor Eugene Goossens had performed the first two movements of Ives’ Fourth Symphony, after many a sleepless night trying to figure out how to perform certain sections of Ives’ score where the bar-lines didn’t jibe — parts where more than one rhythm pattern happened simultaneously.

“I remember,” Goosens said, “that I wound up beating two with my stick, three with my left hand, something else with my head, and something else again with my coat tails.”

For the 1965 premiere and first recording of Ives’ complete symphony, Leopold Stokowski solved this problem by enlisting the aid of two assistant conductors, David Katz and Jose Serebrier — all three men working simultaneously at times to cue the musicians in the trickiest passages of the score.

One of conductors who assisted Stokowski in 1965, José Serebrier, went on to recorded Ives’ Fourth again — this time without the aid of assistant conductors, coat tails, or the surgical addition of another set of arms.

Music Played in Today's Program

Charles Ives (1874-1954): Symphony No. 4; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; DG 4839505

José Serebrier (b. 1938): Symphony No. 2 (‘Partita’) London Philharmonic; José Serebrier, conductor; Reference 90