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Old Home Days

Charles Ives / arr. Jonathan Elkus

Old Home Days The songs and sketches in this suite reflect the composer’s lifelong love of familiar tunes and home-grown music making.

1. Waltz quotes from the popular Bowery song, ”Little Annie Rooney.”

2a. The Opera House is the first part of the old song ”Memories.”

2b. Old Home Day (chorus) opens with a roll-off and march down main street behind the village band. The obbligato features snippets from “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” “Garryowen,” and “Auld Lang Syne.”

3. The Collection (church offering) is a setting of the hymn-tune “Tappan” with “The Organist,” “The Soprano,” and “Response by Village Choir.”

4. Slow March was composed for the funeral of a family pet. It includes a quotation from the “Dead March” of Handel’s oratorio, Saul.

5. London Bridge is Fallen Down! is a tonal and rhythmic “take-off.”

Charles Ives (1874–1954) was born in Danbury, CT. He was taught by his father, an accomplished cornetist and Civil War bandmaster. Ives was an "American original" modernist composer who experimented with polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, quarter tones, and aleatory elements in which chance or indeterminate elements are left for the performer to improvise or realize.

Last updated on December 4, 2019 by Palatine Concert Band