I’m not sure how many songs Ives wrote during his career but the six disks so far issued by Naxos comprise some 191 songs. This collection is as interesting and varied as it could be, ranging from the naïve simplicity of Two Little Flowers to the forthright, but somewhat ribald, They are There!—Ives’ own contribution to the war effort. One of the confusing things about the songs is the bewildering variety of styles in which they are written. It seems to me that he simply wrote in whatever style he thought best fitted the text he had chosen. When he wrote his own words I am sure that the accompanying music sprang alongside the words. This still leaves us confused at the sometimes drawing room ballad style of some of the songs when heard against his more philosophical and complex ones.

This collection concentrates on the more straightforward songs but contains some wonderful surprises—Walking was the first Ives song I ever heard. It still has the power to shock. Starting as a simple song, when the tempo increases the singer gives a, spoken, commentary on the events and sights before him. It’s a marvelous piece of work which never does what you think it might. They Are There! uses unison voices, and piccolo obbligato, and is a passionate war song. Tom Sails Away tells of a family parting in the First World War. We also hear some of his philosophical works—Thoreau, after a spoken introduction, is all contemplation, and his setting of Matthew Arnold, West London—a vision of a growing society. There are the lighter songs, one dedicated to his adoptive daughter, and the very strange Tarrant Moss which sets words by Kipling. However, as copyright permission was refused Ives wrote his own verse and published it under the title Slugging a Vampire! This is Ives at his most perverse. The version recorded here uses the original Kipling words.

Whilst there’s nothing on this disk of the stature of From the Incantation (1921), On the Antipodes (1915/1923) or the astonishing General William Booth Enters Into Heaven (1914) this is an interesting collection of much less well known Ives vocal works. The use of several different singers makes for a really interesting set. They are all very good, with controlled voices, no wobble and vibrato held to a minimum.

Over the years there have been many recordings of handfuls of these songs, from Fischer-Dieskau, Marni Nixon and Jan DeGaetani, but this is part of a complete sequence of the songs and it should be in every collection. The recording is excellent, in good sound and the balance between voice and piano is exemplary. Although Naxos do not accompany the disc with texts for the songs the liner-notes are helpful and give a good idea of what each piece is about.

The sicilienne from the G minor violin sonata (tr. 5) is one of the finest things here, exploring the sonorities of the calm and beautiful music. The real challenge—for violinists and guitarists alike—is however the chaconne from the D minor partita (tr. 9). In Segovia’s transcription it was first performed in Paris on 4 June 1935, almost twenty years before this recording was made. His technical superiority is never in question but also as an almost transcendental reading of the music it has a lot to offer. It seems that he comes closer to the heart of the matter than any other guitarist—or violinist for that matter. Among the lesser pieces the loure from the third cello suite (tr. 10) has a drive that is infectious—and so has the fugue from the G minor violin sonata (tr. 11).

The non-Bach pieces also have their rewards. Handel’s minuet in D (tr. 13) is a charmingly melodious piece and this also goes for the short gavotte (tr. 15). C.P.E. Bach’s siciliana has some surprising dissonances, the well known ballet from Orfeo ed Euridice is a lovely encore piece in Segovia’s sensitive and varied reading and it is followed by Haydn’s charming minuet which has an elegant contrasting trio. The liner-notes by Segovia’s biographer Graham Wade are as always deeply satisfying. This issue is as self-recommending as the later five.

One is Phil Kline, 56, raised in Akron, living in New York, and best known in Philadelphia for his ambient music piece Unsilent Night, performed every Christmas by the Relache ensemble. His new John the Revelator, written for the early-music vocal group Lionheart and the modern-music string quartet Ethel, is just out on the Cantaloupe label and making an unlikely appearance on Billboard magazine's top 20 crossover discs, alongside Sarah Brightman.

The other is Kile Smith, 52, from Pennsauken and based in Philadelphia, who collaborated with the Renaissance music ensemble Piffaro and the modern music choir the Crossing to create his Vespers, just out on the Navona label and selling well at local concerts by both groups.

In both pieces, the composer's Lutheran roots are obvious - Kline with rustic hymns, Smith with more exalted psalms. Points of contact end there.

Most often, you have temperamentally opposite composers accidentally meeting on the same creative ground at the same time, producing works such as Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Tudor Portraits. In this case, though, Kline and Smith stumbled onto the same idea waiting to happen. Given the prevalence and sophistication of early-music ensembles, contemporary composers would naturally want to write for them, but they aren't about to leave the nurturing modern-music ensembles that can apprehend whatever curveballs they're thrown.

Putting them together, Smith created an ethereal, homogenous synthesis with an immediately identifiable personality; Kline embraces the tension of unlikely juxtapositions with words and music stretching over centuries.

Smith suggests a state of being that many people aspire to: His Vespers is a sanctuary, a refuge from life.

Kline collects shards of spiritual meaning in a wintry, urban landscape. His vocal lines suggest lost human spirits; one movement has wordless vocalization amid animated, motor rhythms from the string quartet. Prayers are stymied by mortal existence and hit a glass ceiling. Traditional means of addressing God are met with silence, though another passage says: "In the thin snow . . . I seem to hear your voice." One section has a Samuel Beckett text full of bleak existential questions: "Where now? Who now? When now?"

Kline accepts darkness as part of a journey into the light, skepticism as part of belief. Basic sections of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) have harmonies recalling Machaut's 14th-century Messe de Notre Dame, suggesting formality and severity, particularly with the imposing voices of the all-male Lionheart. But Kline's creative alchemy is such that he can warm up and personalize these chords in an instant. Arrival and resolution are elusive: A cello moans quietly, a chord has a mildly dissonant interval that feels like nagging uncertainty. He has his digression. The Sanctus has a marvelous pointillistic musical construction with vocal counterpoint recalling doo-wop and the Beach Boys. OK, the Sanctus is often quite cheerful.

Smith, in contrast, is scrupulously relevant. His use of musical antiquity - Piffaro's Renaissance instruments - is about cheery, primary colors. The relative lack of emotional complication might suggest his is the more lightweight piece - underscored by the recording, which is well-performed but has the voices so curiously recessed that the richness of Smith's choral writing can be mistaken for mere prettiness. Listen closely, though, and the spiritual solidity of his music is full of distinctive rewards.

The core of any Vespers service is the Magnificat, and Smith's contains a minor miracle that is characteristic of the piece. Many composers have taken the hard-sell, full-choir approach to this text. Smith's setting is carried mostly by soprano soloists who sing a mid-tempo melody that's almost anti-evangelical in its confident simplicity. Then the melody organically germinates into canonic counterpoint, seeming to step outside itself and into another realm, one easily accessible and there whenever you want it. Eventually, the Magnificat does its duty with a resounding mass-choir affirmation of faith. I could do without that, but the genre more or less demands it.

Together, the two pieces complement each other perfectly. Kline tells you that you're not crazy or amoral when in the thick of your 21st- century angst. Smith tells you that you don't always have to go there, and when you do, his music works far better than aspirin. Maybe the two pieces should be performed together - Kline spelling out the existential problem, Smith coming forth with the solution.

The First Symphony is a concise romantic work with a rising and surging insistence. The silvery perfection of his string writing recalls Respighi in the Concerto Gregoriano. The four movement Fourth Symphony was a long time in the making. The first movement is by turns sturdy and dignified and then lightly fugal. There is a racing Molto Vivace with memorable brass fanfares and quick joyous writing for the strings (tr.3 1:20). The last two movements are very substantial: 20:37 and 17:11 as against the first two: 8:40; 6:02. The Lento is a dark and serious affair shackled in soulful tones to the matte lower range of the orchestra. The finale includes many solo episodes and the music is couched in a pastoral contemplative style with some moments rather like Nielsen and Vaughan Williams especially at the start. These are punctuated by some wonderfully empowered hammer-impact chords redolent of Jon Leifs (at 4:20). Some of the surging writing for strings reminded me of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler symphony and at 14:37 the cresting climaxes of the vintage Roy Harris symphonies. At the peak (16:10) it is as if Kayser is exultantly referencing Nielsen's Fifth Symphony. Thus Kayser’s final symphony written at the age of 47.

The recordings of both works are an object lesson in naturalism and immediacy - not always easy bedfellows.