“The Unanswered Question”

Program notes

About the Work

“The Unanswered Question,” composed around 1908, is one of the most remarkable works in the orchestral repertoire: a six-minute meditation on existence that anticipates developments in music that would not become widespread for another half century.

In his working papers Ives subtitled it “a Cosmic Landscape.” The piece unfolds as a kind of philosophical drama in three layers. Strings, ideally placed offstage, play a series of slow, ethereal chords in G major throughout the work, representing what Ives called “The Silence of the Druids”: the timeless, impassive background of existence. Against this backdrop, a solo trumpet poses “The Perennial Question of Existence,” a five-note phrase that recurs seven times, always the same, always unanswered.

In response to the trumpet’s question, a quartet of flutes (the “Fighting Answerers”) attempts to provide an answer. At first, their responses are tentative and tonal. But with each attempt, they grow more agitated, more dissonant, more chaotic, until they finally give up in frustration. The trumpet poses its question one last time. The strings continue their serene progression, indifferent. The question remains unanswered.

Listen for: The three independent layers of sound, each in its own tempo. Notice how the flutes’ responses become increasingly frantic and dissonant with each attempt, while the trumpet’s question and the strings’ “silence” remain unchanged.