In Friday’s (10/18) New York Times, pianist Jeremy Denk writes, “Sunday is the 150th anniversary of the composer Charles Ives’s birth … Ives, a Connecticut Yankee, straddled tumultuous and defining eras of American life; he was born in the shadow of the Civil War and lived almost a decade after World War II. He had no shortage of grand visions, whether for music or for his quite successful insurance business. He conceived influential strategies of estate planning and formulas for coverage. He dreamed that music would evolve into ‘a language, so transcendent, that its heights and depths will be common to all mankind.’ (This didn’t pan out, unless you count Taylor Swift.) And, in the first two decades of the 20th century, he dreamed up a radically original American musical voice—an enviable triumph that came bundled with failure. It was a voice many people didn’t want to hear, and still don’t…. Ives is optimistic, too, but always messy. His music suggests America will just have to muddle through, and wrestle with its own failure. Maybe that makes him hard to take. But at this moment, Ives seems to be more right than ever, more essential, more alive. His best advice—advice we could all use—is to open your ears.”