Ives, Charles E(dward)

Charles Ives

(credit: Clara E. Sipprell)

(born Oct. 20, 1874, Danbury, Conn., U.S.—died May 19, 1954, New York, N.Y.) U.S. composer. Ives claimed to be the product of training by his father, George, a highly imaginative former Union Army bandmaster. He received a solid classical grounding and began composing and performing at an early age. At Yale University he studied with the academic composer Horatio Parker (1863–1919) and composed his first symphony. Under the influence of Transcendentalism, he decided to forgo a music career, and in 1907 he founded a successful insurance firm. With music as a “sideline,” he felt free to pursue his unusual interests, though he suffered from his amateur status and a lack of intelligent critiques. A heart attack in 1918 curtailed all activities, and he stopped composing c. 1926. His music is tonal despite much dissonance, atmospheric, and nostalgic, and it runs the gamut from sentimental or quirkily humorous songs to exciting tone poems (The Fourth of July, 1913) and weighty meditations (Concord Sonata, 1915). He apparently made many remarkable tonal innovations, though questions have been raised about whether he later predated his works to give a misleading impression. His music was rediscovered late in his life; the third of his four symphonies won a Pulitzer Prize in 1947.