Unstylized dances, marches, and songs are conspicious in the music of Charles Ives, giving his symphonies an unruly appearance when compared with their European counterparts. Ives uses collage technique to combine such material (normally considered "foreign" to the symphonic domain) with more "acceptable" symphonic material. Mozart's Don Giovanni, Carl Maria von Weber's Concerto in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and Mahler's symphonies reveal different methods of incorporating such functional "music in music." In these cases, however, the quoted music is absorbed into the character of the composition in which it finds itself to a greater extent than it is in the music of Ives, where it maintains its identity and is thus an equal partner. In addition, in Ives's music, the quoted material becomes, through collage technique, a "principle of form."

Works: Beethoven: Missa Solemnis; Berg: Wozzeck; Ives: Holidays Symphony; Mahler: Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 4; Mozart: Don Giovanni; Weber: Concerto in F Minor for piano and orchestra.

Index Classifications: General, 1800s, 1900s

Contributed by: Cathleen Cameron