Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (/aɪvz/; October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American actuary, businessman, and modernist composer.[1] Ives was amongst the earliest American internationally renowned composers to achieve recognition on a global scale.[2] His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized through the efforts of contemporaries like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, and he came to be regarded as an "American original".[3][4][5] 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.[6] 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.[7]
For the New Zealand international football (soccer) player, see Charles Ives (footballer). For the American physician, see Charles Linnaeus Ives.
Charles Ives
October 20, 1874
May 19, 1954 (aged 79)
Actuary, businessman, composer
Sources of Ives's tonal imagery included hymn tunes and traditional songs; he also incorporated melodies of the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.
Note: Because Ives often made several different versions of the same piece, and because his work was generally ignored during his life, it is often difficult to put exact dates on his compositions. The dates given here are sometimes best guesses. There have also been controversial speculations that he purposefully misdated his own pieces earlier or later than actually written.
Politics[edit]
Ives proposed in 1920 that there be a 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would authorize citizens to submit legislative proposals to Congress. Members of Congress would then cull the proposals, selecting 10 each year as referendums for popular vote by the nation's electorate. He even had printed at his own expense several thousand copies of a pamphlet on behalf of his proposed amendment. The pamphlet proclaimed the need to curtail "THE EFFECTS OF TOO MUCH POLITICS IN OUR representative DEMOCRACY". He planned to distribute the pamphlets at the 1920 Republican National Convention, but they arrived from the printer after the convention had ended.[53]
It is stated in the biographical film A Good Dissonance Like a Man that the first of Ives's crippling heart attacks occurred as a result of a World War I era argument with a young Franklin D. Roosevelt over his idea of issuing of war bonds in amounts as low as $50 each. Roosevelt was chairman of a war bonds committee on which Ives served, and he "scorned the idea of anything so useless as a $50 bond". Roosevelt changed his mind about small contributions as seen many years later when he endorsed the March of Dimes to combat poliomyelitis.[54]
In popular culture[edit]
Charles Ives and his wife Harmony (née Twichell) Ives were the subjects of the opera Harmony (2021) by Robert Carl and Russell Banks, which was premiered by the Seagle Festival in August 2021.[55] Charles Ives was played by baritone Joel Clemens and Harmony Twitchell was played by soprano Victoria Erickson.[56]
