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CHARLES IVES: 'MY FATHER'S SONG'

Name: CHARLES IVES: 'MY FATHER'S SONG'
Author: Stuart Feder
ISBN: 0-300-05481-5

A PSYCHOANALYTIC BIOGRAPHY

by Stuart Feder ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 15, 1992

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Traditional writing on Charles Ives, beginning with Henry and Sidney Cowell's slight 1955 biography, offers a sunny, straightforward view of the composer's creative legacy from his eccentric bandmaster father. More recently, Maynard Solomon (Beethoven's psycho-biographer) has suggested that the father/son relationship was, at least unconsciously, a fiercely rivalrous, darkly Oedipal one. Feder, a psychoanalyst with musical training, now presents a biography devoted to the more complex proposition that ``much of Ives's career in music was the result of an ongoing intrapsychic collaboration with his father.'' The slightly black sheep of a wealthy Danbury, Connecticut, family, George Ives served in the Civil War and aspired to a musical career, but settled for work in the family business, using his free time for community bands and musical ``experiments.'' First son Charles, born with perfect pitch, responded acutely to George's music-making, saw his father as a hero, learned at his side. The result? ``An unrestricted, creative superego.'' But when Charles's gifts soon surpassed George's, his ambivalent feelings (shame, anger, guilt) led him to idealize his father—who died prematurely—and to forsake a full-time music career. Instead, Charles became a successful insurance executive, composing in his spare time. And his music, packed with nostalgic references to childhood and an idealized father, became a form of nonstop ``mourning''—until his own premature creative death (brought on, Feder argues, by internal conflict as much as by physical illnesses). Feder's analysis is marred by thickets of jargon, Freudian excess (e.g., the ear as substitute vagina or phallus), and numbing repetition. But his research is impressive; the work-by-work interpretations contain valuable insights; and, if Feder's thesis ultimately seems overstated and incomplete (Ives's mother remains a cipher), Ives specialists and psycho-biography enthusiasts will nonetheless want to slog through this dense, sporadically rewarding study. (Sixteen illustrations—not seen.)

Pub Date: July 15, 1992

ISBN: 0-300-05481-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.