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Considered by many to have been America's
greatest composer, Charles Edward Ives, b. Danbury, Conn.,
Oct. 20, 1874, d. May 19, 1954, typified in his life and music
much of the New England tradition. Ives's father, George,
a noted Civil War band director with a boldly inquiring mind,
was a key influence on the composer's approach to life and
music. After comprehensive musical studies with his father,
Ives received traditional academic training from Horatio Parker
at Yale University (1894-98). Ives was also deeply influenced
by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
the Alcotts, and Henry David Thoreau, which inspired his remarkable
Second Piano Sonata: Concord, Mass., 1840-60 (1909-15). Each
of the four movements of this sonata bears the name of one
of the above authors as its title.
Ives frequently quoted hymns and popular, patriotic, and ragtime
music in his compositions, but he adapted these borrowings
to new formal and sound contexts that were either misunderstood
by tradition-minded listeners or regarded as curiosities.
At a surprisingly early date he used or created many of the
important 20th-century composing techniques that are still
used, notably polytonality and polyrhythmic textures. Ives's
self-conscious view of himself as a composer in a society
that generally held a disdainful view of music as a profession
was probably one of the reasons for his decision to earn his
living in the insurance business. The firm of Ives and Myrick
(founded 1907) became a famous insurance agency in New York
City. A heart attack in 1921 and a diabetic condition forced
Ives to virtually cease composing; he retired from business
in 1930.
In the 30 or so years of his creative activity (about 1890-1921),
Ives composed more than 500 works, about a third of which
were left incomplete. He produced nearly 70 instrumental pieces
for large ensembles; the most significant of these are his
four numbered symphonies, three orchestral sets (sometimes
called symphonies), including Three Places in New England
(1903-14), and two overtures (Emerson and Browning). He also
wrote music for chamber or theater orchestra, including marches,
ragtime pieces, and The Unanswered Question (1908), several
sets of songs for voices or instruments or both, and music
for band (primarily marches). Other works include two sonatas
for piano, five for violin (of which four are numbered), two
string quartets, a piano trio, many miscellaneous pieces for
a variety of instrumental combinations, numerous piano pieces
(including experimental "studies"), several piano
duets, organ music (voluntaries, preludes, and variations,
including Variations on "America"), music for the
theater, much choral music (sacred and secular), and more
than 200 solo songs with piano accompaniment. The wide variety
of his songs alone gives a broad overview of Ives's shorter
forms and the techniques of composition that spanned his entire
creative career. Scholarly editions of Ives's works are in
process of being published, under the sponsorship of the Charles
Ives Society.
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