Toward the end of the “Hawthorne” essay in Essays Before a Sonata, Ives refers to “the old hymn-tune that haunts the church and sings only to those in the churchyard to protect them from secular noises, as when the circus parade comes down Main Street….†In writing my Concord Sonata book I’ve read, or in many cases reread, almost all of Hawthorne, especially the stories and novels in which this kind of reference might arise, and I can’t find anything Ives could have been referring to. As I continue slogging through the remainder (and I have to admit, I really, really don’t like Hawthorne – he’s a brilliant describer of certain psychological states, but I weary of his reflexive circumlocutions and the inevitable supernatural shticks that clog his narratives) – is there any Hawthorne scholar or lover out there who recognizes where this could have come from? There’s a thank-you in my acknowledgements in it for you.
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
