Charles Ives and Gender Ideology Judith Tick A leopard went around hhis cage from one side back to the other. side: he Stopped only when the keeper came around with meat; A boy who had been there three hours began to wonder, “life anything lke that?” Gharles Ives, “The Cage” Amongtwentieth-century American male composers, Charles Ives stands ‘out as the prime example of an artist who ascribed a masculine ideal to music. His famous description of the birth of music—how “it’s going to ‘be a boy—some time!” typifies the emotional investment he had in that ideal. Many people who knew Ives remembered his destructive bursts of anger, his redundant harangues on a few themes; many of us who read the Memos feel under the volcano.? Ives's various writings about music present the most extraordinary use of gendered aesthetics in the public testimony of an American composer. How are we to understand Ives’s language of prejudice? What is its function and meaning in his musical thought? In the last fifteen years, some answers have been suggested by biographers and psychoanalytically oriented historians and critics; those interpretations will be briefly sur- veyed here. My own goal, however, is to try to understand Ives by ex- ploring the context of his language within the framework of gender Scholarship: historically, by discussing the literature on American women and music from the period, and theoretically, by using gender as an analytic prism through which other ideas and values are refracted.* Like | wish to thank a number of people who read earlier versions of this essay: Stuart Feder, 1 Wiley Hitchcock, Elen Koskoff, Lawrence Kramer, Maynard Solomon, and Catherine Smith. Tam especialy grateful forthe advice and criticism offered by Adrienne Fried Block, ‘Carol J. Oja, Wayne Shirley, Mark Tucker, and Blizabeth Wood 1 ChatlesE. Ives, Mem, ed. Joha Kirkpatrick (New York, 1972), p. 30. 2. This phrase borrows the tide oft novel by Malcolm Lowry. For one such harangue from Ives, ee the Lehman Engel interview in Vivian Perlis, Charles Toes Remontered (New York, 1967), p 195; for another, see John Kirkpatrick's comments in Ives, Mesos, . 280 3. An excellent overview of the current theoretical literature on music and gender i Ellen Koskoff, “An Introduction to Women, Music, and Culture,” in Ellen Koskoft, ed 8“” JUDITH THEK the concepts of race and class, that of gender can encom meanings, not only “the social relationships based o ences between the sexes” but also a “primary way of signifying relation. ships of power.”* I hope to show, first, that Ives inherited both a social grammar of prejudice and an ideology of gender differences in art; and, second, that through these Ives expressed other kinds of meanings and values. ‘The earliest and perhaps still the most influential interpretation is that ffered by Frank Rossiter, Ives's third biographer.® Rossiter argues that ‘the connotation of effemsinacy that art music had for Americans in the nineteenth century... is a crucially important means of approaching Charles Ivesasa composer."” At the time (the mid 1970s) this analysis was not only provocative but brave. For one thing, with women's studies stil in the early stages of development, few academics acknowledged gender 8 a viable historical variable, whereas Rossiter structured the argument ‘of his book around it§ For another, Rossiter was exploring a darker side Women and Music in Cros-Culturat Pespectve (Westport, Conn, 1987), pp. 1-24, See alo Susan MeClary, Feminine Endings: Muse, Gender, and Seca (Minnespalis, 1991), 4. Joan W. Scont, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American His. ‘erica Review 91 (1985) 1067, 5, The concept ofa “social grammar of prejudice,” tobe distinguished from ideology 28.4 belie system, is developed by sociologists Gertrude J Selnick and Stephen Steiner "As hasbeen frequently remarked, people become prejudiced not by becoming acne with Jews, but by becoming acquainted with the prejudiced beliefs current ie their ene ronment. From the perspective of linguistics, prejudice sa social grammar Every languaye hhas rules, mos of them implicit fr the use of adjectives. A man is handsome west bbeauifl; rooms are long and narrow, people tll and thin. Any prejud anti-Semitism, can similarly be viewed arerelevantorappropria ‘Scotsare stingy. including. 2 set of implicit rules specifying which adjectives ich groups: Negroesare zy, Irshare drunkards, ken view of prejudice, and is viability to define only a false ascription a prejudice. Above all eke, a prejudiced ascription isa differential az With respect to Feder, his biography tnriches and deepens our understanding of Ives. Nevertheless, a psy- hoanalytie perspective masks the power of society to transmit gendered Views of culture, rife with prejudice and viable precisely because issues fiher than sexuality are engaged through tropes of masculinity and jemininity2® “In the absence of countervailing forces, prejudice is as 1, MacDonald Smith Moore discusses Mason's essay on distonance in Yankee Blue: stuacal Cultore and American Identity (Bloomington, 1985), pp. 5355. Moore sees may els between Maron and Ives as Vankce composers. For the indgestiility of American rate e Daniel Gregory Mason, The Dilemma of American Music and Other Enays (New York, 1028) p12, Cowelseommentisinaleter to Charles Yes, 16 May 1998, ctedin Rita Mead, Hon Cowet's New Msc 1923-1936: The Soci, the Muse Bdtons, and the Recordings (An Avior, 1981), p. 241 38" solomon, “Charla Tve:"p. 469. The history of the link between “effeminacy” and adc in American thought remains to be documented. Ina recent paper Philip Brett has fered to Tvess homophobic panic” in the context of new approaches tothe fue of scents’ in tmusic Musiality: Innate Gift or Social Contract?” paper read at the TeBERE necting of the American Musicological Society, Oakland, 1990). One starting point pannaerman hetoriane that seems potentially relevant to Ives is Philip Greven, The Prot ret Tenpnament: Pattern of Child Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Eary America (New York, 1977, paricularly the secion ented ““The Choice of Hercule Manfiness ee Steminacy?” (pp. 248-50) I wish to thank Adrienne Fried Block for this reference 24, This points asttely discssed by Linda K. Kerber in “Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History,” Journal of American History 75, {1988)9"99. The present essay i indebted to many of Kerber's observations about the (elnitons between ideology and society and the intelectual consequences of accepting the \Gaalsm implied by the trope of "separate spheres." Zo Irving Babbit, Representative Wings, ed. George A. Panichas (Linco, Neb. 1981), p86. 336, Barbara Melosh discusses how “image makers used images of manhood and wor: nied as topes ia politcal rhetoric directed to isues other than gender,” in heroO JUDETH EK beh aa partly Pee needed them (that is to say, ber had i. motive component 2°* Obvious though it may seem, itis worth pointing, s 1ow well we can distinguish between what he learned aed whey sccm aren Sea oar nea functions that it served—de i-depends partly on how well culkralsouree of his belts with spect vo womens sane te Between 1890 and 1930 the American literature di civeen 18 ature discussing gender ané tus reflet the extraordinary changes of hat period in bath Ameren life and the socioeconomic status of American women, ‘The sont in nsthutons of clas msc sch as orchestras and conser ‘ators combined with the movement of women out ofthe homes imate workforce, challenged the od ideologies defining musi 35 -mplishment” confined to the parlor. This isn i torre that hor in get deta Kl sce merely to en the feader of fairly reeent documentation ofthe high proportion of female ‘ans in American conservatories the entrance of women into the curation of mui and mas teaching" a the US, census ced it of he first generation of female composersol Amencareiee tos Engendeing Culture: Manhood and Won ede Ca (and Womanhood in New 27, Selanich Deal Public Ar and Theater Washington, Steinberg, he Teac of Pru er, p20. neh Seiad Sener dng been hens and ihe ats of prea, (The Teac of Prot, pp. 135-37) ee 02, TH pinay cerned ih ame’ ity ad that i "spect honey: Tht wrk remains te done ne Atte of inde uth Tick somen the Unk ine 180-1910 Yarokof Ter nari Rs NT) ele fond iano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life in Jone ow and Judith Tick, eds., Women. "radeon ere a a sae A an 130-150 an a a ad an Carol Newls-Bates, eds, Women in American 1 Eiaeply of Ms nd tot (expo, Conn 1079); Chine he, Ung. 4 tericn Mie (Westport Conn, 198; Black. “Why “Any Deck Muingy 96 (1989). 41-00, Succeeded a8 a Composer: ‘The Early Yeats,” Current 'ublisher and Champion of American Women Composers, tation is daly language with ratangnes ieirecaeae hs Wiens Mouaatin at ats cea ram ‘Masical Woman: An International Perspective, Vl, 2 1984. 85 "auc at Every Meeting. The iw and the Natonal League of CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDKOLOGY ow Such changes help explain the sheer quantity of literature discussing. yonder and music, as well as its wide range of themes and its controversial tire. Writ large over this diverse literature are tensions and disputes ‘ed by shifts in power and gender roles.** Further muddying its ers is the debate over biological determinism. Themes and values in {ure include identity and commitment (the process of becoming tion (the socioeconomic choice of occupa- nal aesthetics (the relationship between gender and musical con- ;t_touching on styles, genres and composers, and performance) ves's musical environment was far more complex and the gender logy that supported it far more diffuse and contradictory than past spretations of the “feminization” of American musical life have im- plied. Without doubs, “music,” at its most general level of meaning, was Tegarded in the nineteenth century as a female accomplishment.** But it therefore occupied domestic space, in the parlor. And even then, the function of such “accomplishment” was to encourage music-making by ‘women, not to prohibit men from taking it up. Public music-making by professionals was never sex-typed as female, a distinction reflected in the 1910 census, which divides the occupation into the two categories of tusician” and “music teacher.” As Henry J. Harris stated in his pio- neering sociological study published in 1915, “The great majority of nusicians are men while the great majority of the teachers of music are ‘vomen."= In 1910 it was also the case that a slightly larger number of native-born than of foreign-born men were musicians. During the period in which Ives came of age as a composer (ca. 1990-1910), the assertion was widely made that women were innately incapable of composing in the “higher forms,” that is, symphonic music American Pen Women,” paper delivered atthe Sonneck Society annual meeting, AP (0. The phrase in quotation rom Linda Whitest, “The Role of Women Impresarioe in American Concert Life, 1871-1938," American Music 7 (1989): 159. sr Gaerne Parsons Smith diseuses this Hterature in "On Feminism and American sunics paper delivered at the national meting of the American Musicological Society, ruin, 1980, Ie will appear as "On Feminism andl American Art Music" in Susan Cook and Jun Tsou, ed, Ceca: Feminist Perspectives on Women and Afi (University of Minois tacts fortheoming), Linda Kerber notes that “the ideology of separate spheres—tike all cology is not frozen in ime but ii a constant state of refinement und iis reality 0 ieaty aca paradigm shiftin conceptuaizationisunavokable.” (Separate Spheres” p-27) 33. Accomplishment was a ninetenth-century term that included amateur musical cedacaton tes bse in the literature on gender and music, and the kinds of education in fatale academies and seminaries ofthe perio that were associated with it are discussed srtenguh in Tick, American Women Composers Before 1870 (Ann Arbor, 1983). 133 Memry |. Hares, “The Occupation of Musician inthe United States,” Musial Qua- eniy 1 L915) 308. The figures are given in Table I (p, 302) 89,168 of 54,648 musicians sie men; 68,783 of 84,452 teachers of music are women.” JUDITH THK and oper the ex Although women were en the language of creative musical eh sive debate that surrounded the fst generation of Americ ‘women composers, who emerged atthe turn of the century—shod haps “art knows no ses” but women writing in what healed "sta ‘one"—symphonic or operatic genres—were “seeking after virility." A contemporary of Ives, the composer Mary Carr Moore (1873 1951), expressed the central problem of her generation: : Sut ofall the dfficuies 1 encountered, perhaps the greats has ben i the fact hat Taman American anda woman, Fht combinations sure ou has Been the most discouraging obstacle ofall So long ass woman Contents herself with writing gracefl tle songs about springme ad the birdies noone resent or thinks her presumptuous but wee be unt es ifshe daresatempt the age forme! The prejudice ma Wilbe hard and slow deathoe Pane ™=YSecvenually ba By 1910 we find in place assertions of male creative superiori gh lent noe jetermined limits to the creative potential of women. Critics and joun. naliss such 5 George Upton and Lawrence Cian drew on nines century aesthetics of music to perpetuate the masculine/feminine dichot- omy through “das ewig-weibliche” or the “eternal feminine” in music.!* Other late nineteenth- and carly twentieth-century writers tracked ee ei eit ai eh. her life. tid] not believe women are able to compose a long list of symphoni all sing gue anal ids of enced ma fore ie enh yd i the physical stamina of a man.” ("Music After College—as a Profession,” fe Quarterly Barat ar eh atm tome Anti oe Congn (nn Acer, ST 178, Te ae “SES owe ihe ie ca seach or Sorte cee eaten rice eg iiibeedas oecorariteara ee gc ‘into and clans tha there te “any elf lead acy pon which wo never do or can trespass without sacrificing their more delicate an ith se ‘ig wiih" Rather, ah we ned nt oa man andy ae et ina fel in which he has achieved success but to develop those qualities whi speatealy concoct ancora ate CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEO! posers by style, for example, labeling Chopin and Mendelssohn as feminine, Beethoven and Wagner as masculine." Basically, this ideology feflects what historian Rosalind Rosenberg has described as “the Victo- {aith in sexual polarity—from the doctrine that women are by nature ‘and passive, to the dogma that men are by nature rational and [n many respects Ives's attitudes reflect that Victorian perspective. Yet {i vould bea mistake to think that gender ideology in music disappeared living his later years and that his Memos mirror only a distant past. jerican society had changed dramatically in his lifetime, but the lit- ure on gender and music changed far less. The feminization of music ined a viable tenet of gender ideology throughout the 1920s. It 4 itself, however, increasingly mired in contradictions, forafter 1910 significant shifts took place in the labor force that constituted “music and tusic teaching” in the United States. For the first time since 1870, in the 1920s the gender proportions of the profession reversed: census data for 1990 showed that men outnumbered women in the field.*! In an article entitled “The Feminization of Music,” a faculty member from the Pea- body Conservatory catalogued every associated il, from the lack of men iin the conservatories to the sentimentalization of style: “Is it not that the Women have required it of us that we have come to gush and sentimen- Lnlizeto the extent we do now?" he asked the 1922.convention of the Music Teachers National Association. He continued: “I believe the male has jaturally a finer sense of rhythm and proportion than his mate. .. . The ‘man's composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, with ninety per cent of [women] preferring Chopin.” In his article for Harold Stearns's Civilization in the United States, Deems Taylor claimed that “women con- stitute ninety per cent of those who support music in this coun- ty. .-« This well-nigh feminization of music is bad for it. .. . Their pre- dominance in our musical life aggravates our already exaggerated tendency to demand that art be edifying. ... The feminine influence [17 October 1891): 1,3). Fora recent critical study ofthis concept and is relationship to Mlinccenth-century music, see Lawrence Kramer, “List, Goethe, and the Discourse of Genders" in his Music as Cuter Procter, 18001900 (Berkeley, 199), pp. 102-34. 39, James flancker claimed that women could never play Beethoven a well as men, (The Eternal Feminine," in Overomes: A Book of Temperaments [New York, 1904], pp. 277-306.) 0. Rosalind Rosenberg, Beyond Seorate Sphere: nullecual Roots of Modern Feminism (ew Haven, 1982), p xiv ‘TL. Sophonisba P. Breckinridge cites the figures of 85,517 men and 79,611 women in the occupations of music and musi teaching as indicating a “real decline” for women. {Women eth Twentieth Contiy: A Stuy of Ther Polical, Social, and Economic Activites (New York, 1933), pp. 188, 202) {12 Harold Randeiph, “The Feminization of Music” Papers and Proceedings of the Music Teachers National Association, 1922 (Hartford, 1928), p. 198.” JUDITH Tek helps to increase the insularity of ou n DuPree claims that “direct reference to An lex’ in the 1920s, suggesting that perhaps the perception of music as “women’s work” was abating; she cites an interview with Russian Pianist Mischa Levitzki, who claimed it was a widespread problem, butan editorial rebuttal appeared soon after.# ‘The literature on women and music rode the tide of interest in the “new woman” of the 1920s. One article queried, “Now that women vote like men, why shouldn't they play the piano like men?"** A young com. Poser, who had been hailed as a “flapper genius,” voiced her resentment about the condescension that greeted her work, “either in a too facile praise ... orina wholesale condemmation.”*° This small sampling of the literature proves her point: “Women are naturally mechanical, therefore no woman js really musical.”*7 The “emotional life of Woman’ is “an- agonistic to the creative process in music." “Today there are many fem inine composers to constitute a rebuttal to the statement that women are incapable of composing great music.” “To me there is a certain queerness in the interpretation of a man’s work by a woman.” A survey asks, “Are Men Better Musicians ‘Than Women?”*® 48. Deems Taylor, “Music” in Harold F. Stearn, ed, Civilization in the United State: An ‘Inguir by Thirty Americans (New York, 1922), p. 205. This anthology i a blistering attack on American culture edited bya “lost generation” writer who in his ntroduction deplores the feminization of American culture as a whole. For the cultural placement ofthis book, wee Richard H. Pell, Radial Visions and American Dreams: Cute and Soil Thought th he Depression Years (Middletown, Conn., 1973), p. 23 44. DuPree discusses the issue of women and music and the “manliness complex” in [The Flure of American Music: The Critical View from the 1920s" Journal of Macscology 2 (1983): 311-12. The interview is Henrietta Malic, "Leviki Holds the Mugen Mince, Up to America," Musical America (26 January 1924): 5; the rebuttal, Editorial, "Music and Manliness,” Musical America (2 February 1924): 20 45, “Here and There,” Musical Leader (29 September 1921): 301 46. Margaret Starr McLain, “Women as Composers,” Musical Leader (5. November 1931): 7 A. “Lecturer Declares Women Not Really Musical,” Musical Leader (28 July 1981): 100, eporting on a talk by J. Swinburne before the Royal Musical Association in Leadon ‘Swrinburme's talk was published inthe proceedings a few months later and duly ecporsed in an article by D.C. Parker, “Is Woman a Failure as a Musician? for Muséal Anesice (10 ‘ted Feminist Defends Women's Place in Musi,” Musical America (24 January 1922): 5, This article reported on a specch by W. L. George, whom the writer describes asa “noted English writer and feminist” who “defends Woman ae Man's Inte Aectval Equal in Literature But Makes Suggestions Concerning Her Restricted Frowess i Music” M."T. Reilly, Women in Music,” Musical Leader (16 April 1925). 387,414, Gack Salredo, “Personality and Interpretation,” Aeolian Review 8 (1994). B. Eather Waites “Ang ‘Men Better Musicians Than Women?" Musical Digest 13 (1928): 26, 84,61. Waites subutle, “Both the Affirmative and Negative Sites Are Heard on This Absorbing Subject” wee he lead fora survey of opinions by contemporary performers of both sexes, ” CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEOLOGY cd mascline or virile with thetic dcourse thatequated mat siferent gos from some Modernist exis. eit blew that “antéfeminim was a8 fundamental to a it literary modernism,” citing ican mel modernism a8 was to Htrary saute tis erie for Modern Masi, ho in 1929 wrote that one begins to sense actinctively American qualityin some of the American ise that has been writen recendy. One senses in it 2 diaingulshing Virility—the viiy with which itso constantly seeks to expres its eas and Fecings. This characteristic was absent before The older American music ‘wasalabored and generally weary reiteration of thoroughly alien styles.#® a When Ruth Crawford's Sonata for Violin and. Pees eit n 1927, the crc forthe New York Herald Tribune described ita “he most cunein quality that the afternoon brought forth." And the leading wxdernist critic of the twenties, Paul Rosenfeld, linked effeminacy to Fdward MacDowell’s musical weaknesses in terms resembling Ives's. Rosenfeld condemned MacDowell’s “sentimentality’ rence os ees Recent aes ia ge ae i the achieve- hus gender ideology could be used to praise and contain the z ree oman pep or imply desis her as "writing Hike {rman and to reproach a man for writing like a womans =| From aesthetics to sociological observation, engendered views of uk ture provided a contemporary hetoric for controversies that had litle to soccer eerie eget poe mi 1820sthe power of pawonage when wikled by upper las women made 1 progressive group of women particularly vulneral ico ‘ateomen rte than as members ofa wealthy lesured das, A common uiuade was “tha the patronage of women astured the continued weak: ness of American composition.”s? It did not matter much wi! 4o. ting Wei, “Te American Sen Change” Mado Mai, 0-4 (9205 7-8 ‘Smith, "On an Art Music.” tit en etna et Cems = EN ee chceens heaaine al nen ane See Wiersma Works for Pano Sing and Voce Given,” New York ea Tribune, 14 February 1927, p. 10. oe sd Haru dimen Mase Piadelpi, 1929), p46 52. DuPree, “The Failure of American Music,” p. 305.% JUDE TOK music they supported. Consider the reasons ¢ of the New York-based and short-lived. Adleath npony, ound by Bagord Vara in 918, Vater Danton birth of the orch : music he deplored—the mistake of a {Ble pon Gertrude Payne Whitney, holed besntakennby ayoug andsome European composer (Vaitse\™ Afters single, dsatrous season the orchestra failed, and Pal Rosenfeld blamed is death on women one of the innumerable consequences ofthe fact {hatin America musical organizations have patroneses more often than they have patrons."Infact,New Yorkywomen suchas Blanche Walton and Clare Retained the aciviesafnew mucin New York as Gaal jt te nted, women were criticized by some as foo supportiv Imam mus in the 18204 The lent atack yx msn Hoge ves on one of the most important patrons of the period, Ele beth Sprague Coolidge, sho Layee beth Sprag ig, shows how tenacious such scapegoating ati soya genderideology in ess culture covered a spectrum of ele Some far more noxious than others. Is relationship to socal realities es nami rather than static, charaterinally lagging behind soi change, Atits crude it stigmatized classical mutica “effeminate” simultaneously defined ts highest achievements as msc. At is =a ental level, it continued to promote Victorian dichotomies of mined sexual difference. Its viability cut acros sis ; ions, resonating in the attitudes of conservatives and Pay ar ee a cer asc an feminine, o effeminate and fennized, were used sim- le of highly disparate musical orienta ‘Although gender ideolo cuales and a cology largely reflected the inequalities an tries in American society. depending on one's point of view men og meena age la aE in eh ae stg eh ct fh fn pe a chapter in Musical AfTairs” in his My Musial Life, 2d ed. (New York, 1980), pp. thee i roe iter nue) cena ae sana cers. anne ert ane “os Sn Oar ade tnt ny cane so Tagen romero “ene Tg nde eh ase fountains, p. 172.) 1 am grateful to Wayne conc ae are a perennial curiosity.” Their CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEOLOGY ” c and indeed were viewed alternately as its vitims or its {ors.®? To put this in terms of feminist theory: like most gender nies, ours has had the potential to be both instrumental and pre- scriptive for both male and female musicians.* That isto say, the rhetoric sic asa female sphere on the one hand sanctioned female musicality igh sexual difference, and on the other rejected the possibility of wwe equality with men. ‘The parallel for men is that they could be ‘ned by the identification of music with feminization and/or effemi- hnacy, or they could be empowered by their dominant role in music history.!® Small wonder, then, that itis possible for contemporary hi torians to tap this literature to document the effects of prejudice on both ‘and women. {’he writings of Charles Ives thus hold up a mirror that both reflects and distorts the world around him.®° Those of his prejudices that were more for less routine should be distinguished from the hostile beliefs that mark his extremism. In some respects he simply conformed to his culture. Rather conventionally, he confessed to “feeling partially ashamed" of his ‘musical interests as 2 boy, “an entirely wrong feeling but one typical of hoys in small towns”; similarly, throughout his lifetime he assumed men ‘a male achievement to be at the center of any discussion of musical tfenius or, indeed, of high culture in general. Chivalrous and sentimental bout women in the family, a Victorian gentleman in mores,®! he was Condescending in his artistic judgments. He was “skeptical and impatient about any music written by a woman,” according to Sidney Cowell, who ‘o-authored the first biography of Ives, yet his deeds could transcend his own limits. For example, when Henry Cowell proposed Ruth Crav- ford’ String Quartet 1931 as the first recording of the New Music series 57, Kerber, “Separate Spheres.” p. 18 8, Ibid, p. 26. 0. White, “The Role of Women Impresatos,"cites both kind of perepectvesin the post and present fiterature ‘Go. For qo recent discussions of Ives and gender, yee Nora M. Beck, “An Examination of Gender in Selected Writings and Music of Charles Ives," and Lawrence Kramer, “Ives's Misogyny and Pos Reconstruction America.” Bot papers were delivered atthe conference a renitie Theory and Musi: Toward a Common Language, Minneapolis, June 1991. 1 ih co thank both authors For sharing drafts ofthese papers with me, and Beck for her Teferences to my work as well ‘G1, vivian Perils points out that “one of the paradoxes in Tves is that he coukl be both ltrcmodern and teriby ok-fashioned, way ahead ofhistime and far behind it She ctes Jobin Kirkpatriets opinion of Iveand hs wife Harmony as "very old-fashioned.” ("Charles (ean Viewrian Gentleman or American Folk Hero?” in Wiliam Ferris and Mary L. Hart, tus, Fok Miuic ond Modern Sound (Jackson, Miss, 1982), pp. 14142, 144) ‘G2, Personal interview with Sidney Roberton Cowell, 15 Janvary 1988, Quoted by permission,Lad JUDLT THK in 1931, Ives questioned the decision—would C ied cnough?’—but after hearing Cowell's spirited defense of the work, went ontoffund the project. Its telling that when Ives published his 114 Songs hheadopted a female persona 28 composer. Asif he were a Victorian lady amateur, Ives postscripted a note to this publication addressed to the “gentle borrower” of his music, describing this unusual act of private publication as “cleaning house.” Perhaps such humility was supposed to disarm the receiver of his musicand to counterbalance the radical content of the musical items “left out on the clothes line.”+ Despite the common ground between Ives and his environment, it must not be forgotten that he was an extremist about effeminacy. That attitude is marked perhaps more by what he did not say than by what he id. That isto say, Ives was reticent on most of the standard issues of the literature on gender and music. Having chosen to remove himself from the profession as such, he was not concerned about the sex-distribution within the musical labor force. Nor did he participate in the Victorian debate over the potential of the woman composer, or marshal its sub- stantial literature in support of his arguments about the essentially mi culine nature of music. Unlike modernist male writers waging “the war ofthe words,” he did not “define his artistic integrity in opposition to the musical incompetence of women" or to the older tradition of music as feminine accomplishment. Female musicians were on the periphery of Ives's universe, and there is no mention of any professional female mu- sician—either composer or performer—in the Memos.°? Ives was playing for bigger stakes. As Linda Kerber has written, “We live in a world in which authority has traditionally validated itself by its distance from the feminine and from what is understood to be 68. Cowell wanted o record music by Henry Brant and Ruth Crawford. Ives writes,“ ‘now nothing about Brant’s or Crawford's music, except what you & others have tld 'me—whichistha in ime &ea nice tide’ they may get mansized (even Miss)" This incident. {is discussed in Rta Mead, Henry Cowell's New Music 1925-1936; The Soci, the Muse Editions, and the Recordings (An Arbor, 1981), p- 256. G4, Ives, “Postface to 114 Song," reprinted in Esay Before @ Sonata and Other Writings p. 130. 65. ‘This is the thesis of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Guiar, No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer inthe Twentieth Gentry 2 vols, (New Haven, 1988), vo. Lp. 151, which hhas been applied to American music by Smith, “Feminism and American Art Music? Sas of the composers she cites seem to tthe model much better than Ivex S56, “Younger American men apparently believed they had to make the public distance ‘between this older notion ofthe place of art music fas feminine accomplishment and thelt ‘own esthetic posture as wide as posible." (Smith and Richardson, MaryCarr Moot, p- 1789 8, “Although Ives often mentioned ladies metaphorically in his Memon, real women ‘received tle attention. Infact only a dozen-odd of women are mentioned by ame." (Mora M. Beck, “An Examination of Gender in Selected Writings and Music of Charles Iveo "unpublished paper, p. 21, cited here with permission of the author) CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEOLOGY tc." In my view, Ives's most vituperative outbursts of sexist c derive from that search for validation and from his turbulent ion with the authority of the great tradition of European clas- ryder the nature of this confrontation, we need oditinguish eae threo tec ar tomposer of his er,” whether neocasicor progres, Ives "used aa, {rom the past to establish a relationship with the past... [invoking inated eye hg ae wi a ves’ extraordinary powers of reimagining the vernacul Jin in his mie some recent clash has focsed on rconteting his (o the classical mainstream, on demonstrating the extent to which he sorbed technique and vision from any number of European composers, oth past and contemporary.”? Perhaps it is in the nature of nde to be ambivalent about one’s debs. Tee's ambivalence is 50 Hota with nosy that it has led J, Peter Burkholder to conclude d Ives set out to disinheit himself from European music in order to deny the nflience af the pasand,furthes that his name-calling of Europe composers was a way of effecting the rupture.’ eaanah ike Cail ses statements abou ennacy and music which do not sppear unt after 1905, seem to be correlated with dhe evolution of his Vvical experimental style, which crystallized around the same time.# Ives presented some of these compositions as decarations of stl insependence and dissent. The Piano Study no. 20 (1907-1908) has a ote burlesquing RachmaninofT as “Rachnotmanenough."™ Another Hnvlesque exercise was a “Take-off” on the Andante of Haydn's "Sur, prise symphony (19099) with the following marginal note: “AI this G ving had to be made after getting back from the K.-.-.Q concert in winter09 (nothing but triads..." He trvestis the Haydn Quartet “nce litle easy ugar plum sounds for the soft ears pocketbooks,” perfumed sounds for the Dress Circle cushion chair ears,” “velvet pod etbooks,” “nice sweety sitk bonnet melodies, ‘nice sweety jellycake har- tp te a a a tre FE gem ot Pan Ot a et Ne nace mere ee rE cme ym ensure100 JUDITH OK monies.” In th wargin of a mi pt of the Second String Quar- tet Ives wrote “This is music for t th rte Thi men to play-—not the Lay Bird K.... ..Q"? With its expression mark of “Andante Emasculata” in the second movement, the quartet savages both tonal music and it Wvement, ages both tonal music and its status as commodity for “conspicuous consumption” by a leis “ ns y a leisure class. In the ‘Memos Ives emibellshes his account ofthis concert even further, damon it with his favorite epithet of “ni ’ mellifluous sounds, perfect cade fe i snces, perfect ladies, perfect programs, and nota dissonant cuss word to stop the anemia and beauty during the whole evening, ... 1 got to feel, at a Kneisel Quartet concert, finally that 1 was resting my ears on a parfumed sofa-cushion—so got out!” 3 Other works are described as of ition or reaction. 1 piece “in Re Con Mota cAI” was ended wo be va pics tha pe ‘manentowave conductor of those days could conduct! The Thisd So, nata for Violin and Piano was “to make a nice piece for the nice ladies” aftera Yamous, German Virtuoso violinist” had said his first sonata “bore mo resemblance to music ‘Asan arts, then, Ives used and absorbed the great tradition rope whileatthe amc unche hafedundertheonfnescfber hare Seeger used to call “the prison of good music" Ives once wrote that Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms may be the “best music we know” but— invoking the image ofa cageit was “too cooped up __ Yet the issues of style and compositional indebtedness do not, in my view suffice as explanations forthe ways gender ideology served Ives, His profound hostility is not just ingratitude run amok. Ivers other wriungs particularly in the Memos, move beyond style to social context. Tmplicated as well as (if not even more than) composers are performers, critics, and their upper-class constituency of patrons and listeners—in short, what was onee fashionably called “the establishment.” As Lehman Engel, who met Ives inthe erly 1080, obscrvcd He nes consanty ene e 25, Ranier gv he complete marginal ne x ce marginal nate, only the fn few words of which re rn nh il cle (Chases an Aner Cre p30) farginal notes to the score, printed in Kirkpatrick A ’ ae rit in Kikai 6,4 Temper Mcp 7 Th famous phrne omes rom Thoin Veblen, The Economic Study of Institutions (New York, 1899). Meee 78. Mem, p. 73, 79. thi, p. 100. 80. Kirk ick, ed, A Temporary Mimengraped Catalogue, p. 79. 81, Charles Seeger to Ruth Crawford, 11 November 1950, se mi See Ru 11 November 1990, Seeger Estate, private col ‘82. Memos p. 100 CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEOLOGY tol venom about the musical establishment of his day."*® His name-calling of posers belongs to a larger cultural dissent. "America early twentieth-century composers were forced to compete er before with music from a great past that lived through orchestral performances and the advocacy of great conductors. American compos- tis carried a double burden, Although in some senses they shared in the ly tradition as “Western” composers, they were its stepchildren, hav- ing to prove their status by developing a national identity or school. ‘The ‘mous literary critic Van Wyck Brooks described the interplay between the past and the present in late-nineteenth-century Boston in a tone that throws some light on Ives's own attitudes. The cultural life of Boston had become higher and dryer than ever. Having become a religion, it was dying as ‘culture; and it regarded with a glassy eye the poor litle efforts of poets who struggled beneath t. Itidentfied itself with Dante, Browning, with Matthew ‘Arnold, Ruskin, Walter Pater, and felt that because it somehow knew these ‘authors it was entitled to regard with scorn the ingenuous beings who also tried to write, Did they think they could write as well as Browning? What nonsense, then, to try to write at all: With similar bitterness, Ives forged links between the sanctification of the past and the intolerance for modernity that marked the reception of his music. American composers had to work in the vacuum of an extended tradition of classical music. “To try to write at all” was an act that often provoked comparisons with the European masters. To write as a radical modernist exceeded that point of comparison and therefore the boundaries of what was permitted. Ives used gender ideology to articulate his own resentments at and frustrations with his critics and to retaliate for the condescension and rejection he found so hard to en- dure. ‘One need only pick up the opening of the Memos with its caricatures ‘of music critics (quoted above) to see the extent to which Ives's hatred of conventional tonal style is inseparable from his hatred of institutions {including establishment critics) and of the overbearing presence of music from the past. Some of that fury must have come from the Memas’ having been written so close in time to one of Ives's great disappointments: the critical rejection of his music at the Pan American concerts conducted by 83, Engel writes, “He hadn't approved of it, probably largely because they hadn't approved of him, hadn't accepted him in any possible way.” (Quoted in Felis, “Charles es," p. 197.) ‘Bs Van Wyck Brooks, New England: Indion Summer 1865-1915 (New York, 1940), paJUprTH Tew Nicolas Slonimsky in Berlin and Paris."® But eve Stonimsky, discussing commercial med theme: lier letter to Ives trumpeted the same Ba: Art and busines hitched up together, 914 ke ob precise ofall radio and phonograph recorde-are “sebaceous soho 4 that~and they seltthough if year-old fs sbvae eee ae break he will alvays bea Bynr-ldand te outed eke dk "i eter om the Vicor Coal cient ede bythe le—nnecenary satenent—just lok at Thana ote ists! 955% “ta ta” stuffs - | eat aorta ‘The covenant between the Europea i 2 ‘uropean past and the upper classes is a main theme in the Memos. Two illustrative excerpts, which need full quotation, reveal Ives's politics, in which taste, el rer al ae pol ich taste, class, and power are con- ‘A sronger us ofthe mind and car would ‘hose greatest interest and pleasure in are iso ge th names dom among the Fiend, and in ging dinners to Fovopean as condsctons ‘more repttaton than anything ele (atl atta anil conte ne diners}~leting hemsevesbecome dun toohofsmaoangal Levee toeverything the monopaits tel hem about Amerea bag sored county and creating akind of American Musiinfesoray pen tn carmel nop, whether ron dona concer i Singers, haves ong fostered and held their monopole {ef tenn hundred years inthis county) that aa result ach ofa ag car has become a SoftSaic Co. (mited) andthe Cationic ee have go the money and cllected the lair ses ‘mean less people (usually ladies) ‘music, and in all nice things, rectors and Patrons of Rollo's ‘That world is captured in the frontispiece ph iel Gi : romiapiece photograph for Daniel Gre ‘Mason's autobiography. Together are the symbols of Ives ie the virtuoso (Josef Hoffman) and his patron (Edward De mot nous New Vor re-Word Wa I mela) in e's fulminations agunst his own situation ave eee sccstonalytranscnded the personal element to beecee ea tests against what recent hiorians have called the econ tesla resentment: Coppet, the legant dress. 85, In his preface to A Temporary Mineopraphed Caalogue faming the opening sections ofthe Menos forthe rede by concerts andthe eal cept pp. 1-10 sarles es to Nicolas Slonimsky, 26 December 1980, Reprinted in Nicol nimsky, ed., Music Since 1900, 4th ed. (New York SER git des ad ya (New York, 1971), p. 1528 858. ancl Gregory Mason, Main My Tine ond Od miners . 7 New York, 1989, Mason devotes «caper ot hs beak to ster Tos ila Oty Caborca ‘Kirkpatrick makes this clear, ving details of Slonimsky's CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEOLOGY 103 culture."™ Although this concept has generally been applied to popular tnuisie Lves was not alone in suggesting that classical music from the past (in being “commercialized,” that, to sustain profits in the marketplace, Jimeners were conditioned to accept only those works as “good music { he notion that appears in the previous excerpt, that artis controlled by cultural “monopoly,” occurs in a later statement.in a context that is even nore revealing than his reaction to the Kneisel Quartet: ep 4 (5 34)—in London... The music onthe bats and Green Park Pere rome come moresrongl and opel url than siting Poa ror and heating thove groove chewed ude (hone ee ears Wed to the sme old nie apronstsngs which ave De an eae procsn)ihat me lat eal fe, mst be rr ee ongue on onwards and aays upward or become ol ran ed opi and de! Iwas never more enacios of de apy ene se a inti accept anything round, sat for baron, which so a va anicerak hat an shanti comercial ares conservatories ihe eter Kove the worse)—the psd a coven prima donna nonypalits—and perhaps the oes ne ae ashing he broaden ad ecording for pro. The Vale Ta mn agar codle ay it bigger than what we heard lst cae eee fat mice oop, and cs ty to be something a phonies overtares tare worse bese they ge ot eae aie malin beleve is tg. Every phrase, ine, and sre ea wcnt over and rer the way you'd exacly expect hem 0 fone, cme ing fp, ae me of eg ra Feeeky (ee aes Bo the wort part thing Nn An muse might some aye ke an emanated here, deal but a ee sce done young people tanding dowesta serine sone alow ap lonng from somach that had never had ane Su tate ern te probly componng, snd You can se them Ng a ta ee simygroovrana thinking heyarecreang aa Se ping muse dcine-dying--Oying dend™ For Ives the Proms concert evening precipitated his worst nightmare, an apocalyptic vision of the Death of Music in surrealistic imagery: round, soft minds melting like clocks in a Dali painting, yellow sap flowing from tomach—is this poisoned mother’s milk? And the ultimate dishonor: aac Nemanlated cherry"~-cherry bere indicating nota hymen but, probably, a homosexual. This entire jeremiad isinformed by political en et rtp tt oe ee eet et aes schemes greeter ceca aanJUDITH Tek ier as a way to talk sconce tno Sate on siden iyteae Gepor hans os enero “ums, 1e past” servicing “fashion-enslaved, presti nS tl ea tis Tae aaa Be oscanini undertake ‘irgil Ths apelin Vi a eles es ren masterpieces and the “greatest amphi tn eee nd cae gate ae on ea tution of Art,” can also be compared to 1 Capa Mone ee be compared to Theodor Adorne's citcism of Other ultramodern com; formers. Carl Ruggles is all Juilliard, teavin some writings mncerts as “ sposers were equally belligerent about per- leged to have ranted privately about trang ce eal shige in John Erskine sitting at the head of it, and Ernest Hutch an} And Vardse is reported to have i oe in ace oe, srr id oer ain ity chat Soweto crea eS irs ued unite eae ta gener clog ar ween bras era ta Se erg pinnae whitch te Psa ee ee ny ordering ef pwc andra non ease loner OF psomerspomace ant a arcet 91. Mason is quoted in a al Joseph Horo, Undortanding Tvanni New York, 198), 2, hid, p24, 98: Mor pH Adorn ey Hoon, _its Tis commen uae by Ruts Const Sceger Este Libary of Congres Cort 95. Quoted in Louise Varese, Var ‘Varese, Verse: A Looking Glass Diary (New York, 1972), p. 195, ‘The purpose of Ives's militant Understanding Te escanini, pp. 296-40. ‘an unpublished memoir, ca, 1980, CHARLES IVES AND GENDER IDEOLOGY 105 nce as natural, he redefined it as effeminate and therefore unnatural. tusic was pilloried by snobbish comparisons to the Old Masters ‘n was), then Ives desecrated the false idols. If Bach, Beethoven, ind Brahms were ranked as hard and masculine, then he suggested that they were instead soft and tainted with effemninacy. In this sense his calling was purposeful. His project was the emasculation of the patriarchy. That he undermined his own cause by relying on the language of yonder prejudice is only one of the ironies attending the life and works ti this great composer. Letme remind the reader that the literature about ender and music in American culture has not been surveyed here as an [Ipology for Ives but, rather, to demythologize his anger and to confront ir own cultural legacies. “In isolation, anger is privatized and neutral- ized, unrecognizable,” litical implications suppressed.® Thus the nanner” of Ivesian polemics has to some extent undone its “substance,” ‘not only diminishing his historical stature as an American paradigm but “obfuscating the political content of his dissent. Given our post-Freudian habit of reading sexuality into every context, it i all the harder to read it out where it misleads. Given our cultural addiction to the music of the past, we have been uncomfortable confronting Ives’ apostatic treatment Of the canon. In our gender ideology of music the “masculinization” of high art has been no less powerful and pervasive than the “feminization” ‘of musical “accomplishment,” these associations retaining some reso- ‘ance even today. Unless we distance ourselves from this legacy, we run he risk of cementing the orthodoxies of “separate spheres” into our own interpretations, rather than recognizing the continuum of possible ad- iptations and resistances between individuals and society and between men and women who, as composers and musicians, are bound together ‘as much as torn apart by the ideology surrounding music and gender. Itis beyond the scope of this essay to do more than acknowledge the complexity of the larger relationship between Ives’s rhetoric and his music. To paraphrase a historian of science, “Just as music—always more abundant than its representations—inevitably transcends our laws, so the practice of composition—always more abundant than its ideology—tran- Scends its own prescriptions.”*” It is open to question whether Ives's “music issues from a contest between opposing aspects of his own nature” or whether “the Ives who talked about the emasculation of music is not 196, Marianne Hirsch, The MotheriDaughter Plot: Narrative, Pachownabss, Feminism (Bloomington, 1989), p. 19. 107, "june as naturealways more abundant chan its representations —inevitably tran- sconds our lana, a0 the practice of science—always more abundant than its ideology— eicends its own prescriptions (Evelyn Fox Keller, jlctons on Gender and Science {New Viaven, 1985}, p. 136.)106 JUDITH Tek the Ives who wrote the music."™"'The “Ives who talked learned the social srammar of his culture; the “Ives who wrote” used its related ideology as defense against rejection, an important element in his modernist dissent and his presentation of himself as an artist—a way, that is, to distance himelf rom the inherited patrimony on bis own terms, i fomen—either as “Woman” or as real women-—were only a small par of this polemic. The ultimate misogyny in Ives's aesthetic is its total devaluation of feminine values, the despoiling of difference asi was understood then. Like the boy who watched the leopard in the eage, we witness Ives's turbulent intellect pace between his false antinomies, his words and music offering up the challenge of his unansw “Is life anything like that?” banca a 98. ‘The first quotation is from Solomon, “Charles Ives," Burkholder, quoted in id | co ere a The Ethnomusicologist as Midwife Carol E, Robertson ‘The themes of this essay revolve around midwifery as a metaphor for the {ranslation of information from one set of cultural realities to another. I will focus on Mapuche and Hawaiian concepts of self-knowledge and ‘culturalidentity that directly impinge on the transmission and articulation fof music.1 These concepts being brought into our midst demand changes iin some of our most basic assumptions about the nature of musical knowl- ‘edge and the role of the performer in society. Thus, the task undertaken here is to give safe passage to musical perceptions that might easily be dismissed simply because they do not fit our habits of thought and in- terpretation. Midwifery also involves bringing something—a child, a trad belief, a “different” human being—from the periphery of awareness to the center of attention. Many human communities, be they socially or \llectually based, tend to relegate to the edges of a community those \who do not conform to a common denominator of thought, behavior, or physical presentation. Difference, in other words, is the most common An earlier version ofthis essay was presented in 1988 in Berlin atthe symposivin on Music inthe Dialogue of Cultures, sponsored by the Internationa Insitute for Comparative Music Suidics and Documentation "The presentations from that event have been published in Max Peter Baumann, ed, Music nthe Dialogue of Cultures: Traditional Music and Cultural Policy, Intercultural Music Studies, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1991). TL The Mapuche today inhabit the southern Andean areas of Chile and Argentina, My incor here it with the groups in Argentina that were fist conquered by the Chilean Mapuche and, athe warn ofthe twentieth century, by the Argentine army. The research Ihnthese Mapuche was conducted in 1972-1978, 1978, and 1961-1982 with funding from the Ford Foundation, Indiana University, Columbia Univesity, and the University of Maryland. Rescatch in Hawa was undertaken in 1987-1988, under the auspices ofthe National Research Council. 107