Serenity (1919), to a text by John Greenleaf Whittier, was arranged from a sketch of an ensemble ‘song’ earlier than May 1911 and may well be connected to Ives’s projected
Whittier Overture, one of his ‘Men of Literature’ series. He suggested this trance-like piece was best sung as a unison chant, over its repetitive chiming accompaniment figure.
from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2005
