A distinct patriotic style of musical borrowing should be included in discussions of Charles Ives’s stylistic heterogeneity, and the extramusical meanings behind borrowings of Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean help reveal Ives’s patriotic beliefs. Columbia, written in 1843, is one of the tunes most frequently borrowed in Ives’s work and, significantly, Ives uses only the verse, not the chorus. Uses of Columbia can be broadly characterized in three ways: understated, developing, or climactic. An example of understated borrowing, in which Columbia appears in short snippets with several other patriotic quotations, is found in Ives’s song Lincoln, the Great Commoner. The textual meaning of Columbia underscores the textual meaning of the Edwin Markham poem Lincoln that Ives sets, reverently evoking Abraham Lincoln and the American ideals he represents. An example of developing borrowing comes from Ives’s String Quartet No. 2. While the quartet is not overtly patriotic, it does include quotations of Columbia and other patriotic tunes that are developed in a kind of “learned” style. Columbia is used first to parody a heated political discussion, then it appears as a melodic basis for contrapuntal development. Climactic Columbia borrowings place the quotation after a large build-up and in a celebratory manner. Ives also uses climactic borrowing of Columbia in Waltz-Rondo, a piece with no explicit nationalist references. This example demonstrates that patriotic style is a distinct style among the romantic piano, ragtime, modernist, and waltz styles present in the piece. The Fourth of July exhibits a fusion of the above categories of borrowing with regard to Columbia. In developing a theory for the patriotic topic, extramusical association should be considered as a criterion for identification.

Works: Charles Ives: They Are There (46-47), Lincoln, the Great Commoner (53-58), String Quartet No. 2 (58-66), The Fourth of July (67-69, 73-75), Waltz-Rondo (69-73)

Sources: David T. Shaw (or Thomas A’Becket): Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean (47-75)

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet