Charles Ives (1874 - 1954) American

        Charles Ives  (Wikipedia article)  

        A List of Ives' Compositions

Ives' Most Famous Work

      Besides the "Concord" sonata, below, Ives is known for his four symphonies (especially No. 4), 
      his String Quartet No. 1, Central Park in the Dark, The Unanswered Question, 
      Three Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1), and Orchestral Set No. 2.


Who Was Charles Ives?

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer, being one of the first American 

composers of international renown.  He was born into a  prominent New England family.  

He was not a professional composer but  an insurance company executive who helped create 

modern estate planning.  

His music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for 

many years, but later the quality of his music was recognized and he came to be regarded as 

an "American original.  He was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic 

program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, 

tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones.  His experimentation foreshadowed many 

musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century.  Hence, he is 

often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century.  American 

themes are prominent in a lot of his music.

Ives quit composing in 1927 at age of 53, tearfully telling his wife that "nothing sounded right."  

He was very ill from diabetes and other illnesses but lived to the age of 79.  



Selected Work:

       Piano Sonata No. 2  Concord, Mass., 1830 - 1860   (1915, pub. 1920, rev 1937)


          The four movements are:

                 "Emerson"  (after Ralph Waldo Emerson)

                 "Hawthorne"  (after Nathaniel Hawthorne)

                "The Alcotts"  (after Bronson Alcott and Louisa May Alcott)

                 "Thoreau"  (after Henry David Thoreau)