114 Songs (First Edition)

Redding, CT: Charles Ives, 1922. First Edition. First Edition. Second issue, in publisher's blue cloth with titles and rule in gilt on the front board and spine, and with pages 37-39 printed, and no dust jacket as issued. Fine condition.

A collection of avant-garde short pieces in every imaginable format (marches, violin sonatas, group sing-a-longs, etc.) written by Ives using the poetry of Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Wordsworth, Keats, James Fenimore Cooper, and others as lyrics. Notable as much for musical content as for the long essay by Ives at the rear regarding his typically involved conceptual intentions (truncated) for this particular gathering of compositions. An eccentric publication by one of our greatest and certainly most eccentric twentieth century composers. (Inventory #: 125140)