Charles Ives

condition (record/cover): NM / VG (4" bottom seam split and heavy ring wear)

The Holidays Symphony (1904-13) - four movements, each evoking an American holiday: Washington's Birthday, Decoration Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving - is among Charles Ives's most ambitious and characteristic orchestral works. It incorporates hymn tunes, marching band music, and patriotic songs layered with a density and complexity that makes it practically ungovernable in performance: parts moving at different tempos simultaneously, bands playing in different keys, the whole giving the impression of memory and actuality superimposed. Columbia's recording brought this music to listeners for whom it remained largely inaccessible from the score alone.