In 1908 Ives and his wife Harmony took a Sunday morning walk along the Housatonic River near Stockbridge. Ives recalled that they ‘heard the distant singing from the church across the river. The mist had not entirely left the river bed, and the colours, the running water, the banks and elm trees were something that one would always remember’. He made a musical sketch, trying to capture this powerful impression of mist and waters, and in 1911 he worked this into a short-score draft. It became the finale,
The Housatonic at Stockbridge, of his First Orchestral Set,
Three Places in New England. In 1921 Ives recast the music for voice and piano, to words by Robert Underwood Johnson, in order to include it in
114 Songs.
from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2005
;)
