The Unanswered Question

Ives provided a short text by which to interpret the work, giving it a narrative as in program music. Throughout the piece the strings sustain slow tonal triads that, according to Ives, represent "The Silence of the Druids-who Know, See and Hear Nothing". Against this background, the trumpet poses a nontonal phrase seven times -"The Perennial Question of Existence"-to which the woodwinds "answer" the first six times in an increasingly erratic way. Ives wrote that the woodwinds' answers represented "Fighting Answerers" who, after a time, "realize a futility and begin to mock 'The Question'" before finally disappearing, leaving "The Question" to be asked once more before "The Silences" are left to their "Undisturbed Solitude".