Charles Ives Influences

Born on October 20th of the year 1874 in Danbury, Connecticut, the American man, Charles Edward Ives, was not only a modernist, but also an original composer. He pursued what is perhaps one of the most extraordinary careers in American music history. Unfortunately, Ives music was ignored for most of his life and many of his works were unperformed for several years. His music consisted of a combination of the American popular and church music traditions from when he was younger with European art music. This was not a common genre of music. He was also one of the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with many different musical techniques. These techniques included tone clusters, polytonality, polyrhythm, quarter
George was a U.S. Army bandleader in the American Civil War. Charles’s mother was Mary Parmelee. Many people all over the world wonder what influenced Charles. One strong influence in his life that made him have the desire to work with music was listening to his father’s marching band. His father’s unique music lessons were also a strong influence; he took an open-minded approach to musical theory which encouraged Charles to experiment in bitonal and polytonal harmonization.
At the age of 14, Ives became a church organist and wrote many hymns for church services. In 1893, he moved to New Haven and enrolled in Hopkins School, where he was captain of the baseball team. In September of 1894, Ives entered Yale University and studied under Horatio Parker. At this college, Ives was a prominent figure. He was a member of HeBoule, Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter), Wolfs Head Society, and was chairman of the Ivy Committee. He also played sports at Yale, including varsity
Following his recovery from the 1907 attack, Ives entered into one of the most creative periods of his life as a composer. After marrying Harmony Twitchell in 1908, they moved into their own apartment in New York. He had a remarkably successful career in insurance, and continued to be a famous composer until he suffered several heart attacks in 1918, after which he composed very little, writing his very last piece, the song Sunrise, in August 1926. In 1922, Ives published his 114 Songs which represents the determination of his work as a composer. It includes art songs, songs he wrote as a teenager and young man, and highly dissonant songs. According to his wife, one day in early 1927, he came downstairs with tears in his eyes: he could compose no more, he said, "nothing sounds right." There have been numerous theories advanced to explain the silence of his late years. While Ives had stopped composing, and was increasingly plagued by health problems, he did continue to revise and refine his earlier work, as well as oversee premieres of his music. After continuing health problems, including diabetes, in 1930, he retired from his insurance business, which gave him more time to devote to his musical work, but he was unable to write any new music. During the 1940's, he revised his Concord Sonata, publishing it in 1947. Ives died in 1954 in New York City.
Although Ives has many famous, outstanding