Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Biography

Charles Ives (born 20 October 1874 in Danbury, CT; died 19 May 1954 in New York City) was an American composer. Widely considered an innovator, Ives was the son of U.S. Army Bandleader George Ives. At a young age, Ives studied organ and went on to Yale to study composition with Horatio Parker. Believing that he could not earn a living writing the music that he wanted to write, he formed a successful insurance business and composed in the evenings. Much of his music was ignored during his own lifetime, and many of his compositions were not published until decades after he had written them.

His compositional style was largely experimental, but also incorporated American folk tunes and hymn songs to paint a unique tonal portrait. In 1947 he received a Pultzer Prize for his Third Symphony (1911), after its debut only a year earlier in 1946. He died in New York City in 1954, leaving a legacy that predated most of the twentieth century innovations such as atonality, aleatoricism, polytonality, microtones, multiple cross-rhythms, and tone clusters.

Works for Winds

This composer primarily wrote orchestral music. Transcriptions of his music include:

• A Son of a Gambolier (arr. Elkus)
• Alcotts, The (tr. Elkus)
• Circus Band, The (tr. Elkus)
• Country Band March (tr. Sinclair)
• Decoration Day (tr. Elkus)
• Finale from Symphony No. 2 (tr. Elkus)
• Fugue in C (arr. Sinclair)
• March 6: Here's to Good Old Yale (tr. Elkus)
• Old Home Days (arr. Elkus)
• They are There! (arr. Sinclair)
• Variations on "America" (orch. Schuman, tr. Rhoads)
• Variations on "Jerusalem the Golden" (tr. Brion)

References

• Charles Ives - Official Society Website
• Ives, Charles. Essays Before a Sonata Digital Text.
• Ives, Charles. (1843) Chips from the Workshop (Poems) Digital Text.