Postlude in F

The Postlude in F was arranged by Ives in 1897-98, Ives's last year at Yale College. He worked from an early organ piece, perhaps of 1890, as an exercise in orchestration. Biographer Jan Swafford writes: "As a teenager (not in later years) he was a Wagner fan, and the music show the influence of Wagner in general and the Siegried Idyll in particular. Given that this is one of Ives's first know works for orchestra it is surprisingly beautiful, and accomplished in its lush late-Romantic instrumentation. The piece reveals his enormous gift for imitating a style dead-on and making it his own, a skill he would mobilize in a great deal of his music both light and serious." Kenneth Singleton fashioned the critical edition of this piece and did a handsome arrangement for concert band.

- James Sinclair