{"id":927,"date":"2014-11-21T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=927"},"modified":"2014-11-19T10:11:54","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T10:11:54","slug":"song-of-the-week-general-william-booth-enters-into-heaven-charles-ives-by-michael-tilson-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=927","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;General William Booth Enters into Heaven&#8221; (Charles Ives) by Michael Tilson Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is the Charles Ives composition, &#8220;General William Booth Enters into Heaven&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gNECp-yiiO4\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A couple of weeks ago I went to a concert given (in part) by London choir <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eclecticvoices.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Eclectic Voices<\/a>, mostly because they were performing this song by Charles Ives, and I really like the music of Charles Ives.\u00a0 As is usual with this kind of American music, my introduction to Ives came through Richard Crawford&#8217;s masterpiece, <a href=\"http:\/\/books.wwnorton.com\/books\/detail.aspx?ID=7888\" target=\"_blank\"><em>America&#8217;s Musical Life<\/em><\/a>. Ives is a really interesting composer, who never seems afraid to try out something a little bit off the wall (recreate the sound of two marching bands moving towards one another? Why not? Emulate the arrival of the circus into town? Sure! Simulate a cowboy&#8217;s death by stampede? Yep!). William Booth was the the founder of the Salvation Army, and what I particularly like about this song is the use of the refrain, &#8220;Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?&#8221; which I&#8217;m pretty sure Ives lifted from a 19th Century hymn, and which takes on shifting connotations as the song progresses, because Ives keeps assigning it to different tones.\u00a0 The song also has a really pleasing kind-of-symmetry, with its quiet, creeping opening, and its quiet, peaceful ending.<\/p>\n<p>This particular version is the only recording of &#8220;General William Booth Enters into Heaven&#8221; I own; the baritone is Michael Tilson Thomas, and he&#8217;s singing with the San Fransisco Symphony.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22General%20William%20Booth%20Enters%20into%20Heaven%22%20%28Charles%20Ives%29%20by%20Michael%20Tilson%20Thomas\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is the Charles Ives composition, &#8220;General William Booth Enters into Heaven&#8221;: A couple of weeks ago I went to a concert given (in part) by London choir Eclectic Voices, mostly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22General%20William%20Booth%20Enters%20into%20Heaven%22%20%28Charles%20Ives%29%20by%20Michael%20Tilson%20Thomas\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}