Work of the Week - Charles Ives: Central Park in the Dark

Written in 1906 when the composer lived in an apartment near New York’s famous Central Park, Charles Ives’ orchestral work Central Park in the Dark describes a night time walk through the park highlighting the sounds, atmosphere and twilight goings-on.

The orchestration gives the work a programmatic feel with individual instruments taking on their own role. The initial silence is interrupted by the rattling of horse hooves, passing trams or singing night owls with the result being a tapestry of sounds that fill the park by night until everything disappears into the darkness again.

A picture-in-sounds of the sounds of nature and of happenings that men would hear some thirty or so years ago when sitting on a bench in Central Park on a summer’s night. Charles Ives

The performance material for Central Park in the Dark is now available from Schott Music and we are very proud to be the world-wide representatives of this work. It is one of Ives’ most well-know pieces and displays many characteristics of his music such as the inclusion of well-known marches and dances as well as the complex layering of different musical levels.

A number of performances of Central Park in the Dark take place over the next week.  The Chicago Sinfonietta perform the work on 16th January at the Symphony Centre, Chicago and in Europe the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra give a performance on Friday 20th January at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and on 23rd and 24th January the Graz Symphony Orchestra will give performances at the Stefaniensaal in Graz.

• Charles Ives - Profile