Ives: Universe, Incomplete [Blu-ray]

Charles Ives is the most famous 'weekend composer' of musical history and is regarded today as the first composer of the modern age in America. 'The Un-answered Ives' is the first film about Charles Ives and a profound exploration of an extraordinary, multi-faceted personality. It sheds a light on Ives life and work in all their facets and explores his musical world with performances in churches, concert halls, out in the open air or in a circus. Insurance brokers, musicologists, musicians and eyewitnesses give their own answers to the question which has hardly yet been answered today: Who was Charles Ives?

“In case I don’t get to finishing this, somebody might like to try to work out the idea, and the sketch that I’ve already done would make more sense to anybody looking at it with this explanation.” (Charles Ives)

Inspired by these tempting words, the director Christoph Marthaler, the conductor Titus Engel and the stage designer Anna Viebrock develop their own highly individual perspective on an uncompleted project by the American composer Charles Ives (1875–1954): the Universe Symphony, which is one of the great utopian works of the 20th century. It is utopian because Charles Ives conceived it as a sonic event that would explode all classical forms of performance. It is also utopian because he never completed it – instead continually composing it anew. It is an unfinished jumble consisting of notes, sheets of sketches and pages of score.

Using only sections of the work that were actually composed, Christoph Marthaler, Titus Engel and Anna Viebrock create a scenic and musical environment in the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum in which the instrumental soloists, together with the Bochumer Symphoniker and an ensemble made up of actors, dancers and singers, will look back from a distant future on our life today and fantasize a future out of the present.

New production “Universe, incomplete” at the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum - August 17th, 2018.