This first major work by Ives was written in 1896 when he was twenty-one, and a sophomore at Yale University. Using the hymn tune From Greenland's icy mountains to Africa's coral strand, the first movement is a bright, formal fugue which freely modulates, giving us a good hint of the "improvisational" compositional style that was to come in his later years. Suddenly stopping on a deceptive cadence before re-stating the theme is one of the interesting ways Ives "gets away" with dissonaces in this traditional setting. The second movement is bright, energetic and home-spun Americana at a time when there was no such thing in concert music. At that time, Germanic style and rules were the only "correct" procedures; the American style would only come into existence forty years later. The theme sometimes hops in twos and sometimes skips along in threes, sometimes deliberately trips over itself and freely modulates both chromatically and modally. A re-statement of the theme does little to clarify the issue. A lovely, late-Romantic influenced Adagio cantibile theme begins the third movement, but this is harmonized in unusual ways, including some bi-tonal clashes; the secondary theme is another lively American one accompanied by pizzicatti, in fourths and fifths. The Adagio cantabile theme returns at the end. The Allegro marziale is at first a skipping rhythm that quickly modulates through all the keys, and gradually polyrhythms of threes against fours are introduced with many deceptive cadences that continually trick the ear. The theme returns, this time closer to a ragtime feel; chromatic runs build into a wonderful climax with outrageously strident multi-stop chords in a fast review of keys. A strikingly original work for its time, and one that has maintained a sense of longevity.

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