Extremely interesting post at Post-Classic in which Kyle Gann discusses variants in the Concord Sonata of Ives. Let me repeat here what I said in a comment there: it is a shame people don’t seem to be interested in preparing critical editions of scores anymore – you would think such an edition of the greatest American composition for piano would be pretty important, wouldn’t you?

Update: In a reply to my comment, Kyle Gann rightly pointed out that the Charles Ives Society has done, and is doing a lot of work on critical editions of Ives. I didn’t mean to overlook this important work – but the fashion in musicology these days is away from doing critical editions, and it seems 20th century music gets overlooked. Glad the folks working on Ives are bucking that trend.