Charles Ives (1874-1954) (see HWM biography, page 836, and Biography Figure 31.10) Ives was born in a small Connecticut city, where his father was a bandmaster and music teacher. He became the youngest professional church organist in the state at age fourteen. His father taught him theory and an experimental approach to sound. He studied music with Horatio Parker at Yale. Ives settled in New York, working as an organist. He chose a career in the insurance business and built one of the most successful agencies in the nation. He composed music in the evenings and weekends, but retired from composing in 1918 due to a health crisis. Although he worked in obscurity, he was later recognized as the first American composer to create a distinctly American body of art music.
Ives was fluent in four distinct spheres of composition, and he combined elements of each in his mature music. American vernacular music He grew up surrounded by American vernacular music, including parlor songs, minstrel shows, and marches directed by his father. He composed numerous marches and parlor songs.
Protestant church music Ives sang and played organ in church for much of his early life. He learned all of the styles prominent in American Protestantism, which were cultivated in his studies with Parker.
European classical music He played major organ works by composers such as Bach and transcriptions of other classical works. He studied art music with Parker. His First Symphony is modeled after Dvo ák's New World Symphony.
Experimental music He experimented with new sounds, including polytonality (melody in one key and accompaniment in another), in his youth. Processional for chorus and organ is an essay on possible chord structures (see HWM Example 31.14a). Scherzo: All the Way Around and Back for chamber ensemble is a palindrome that builds on dissonant ostinatos (see HWM Example 31.14b). The Unanswered Question (1908), his best-known experimental work, combines both tonal and atonal layers in one work.
Synthesis Ives composed in classical genres after 1902, but mixed in other styles and sounds that he knew. The Second Symphony paraphrased American popular songs, borrowed passages from classic composers, and combined them in a symphonic idiom.
Cumulative form American hymn tunes can be found in Ives's Third Symphony, four violin sonatas, and First Piano Sonata. In each, thematic development occurs first and leads to the themes at the end. In this process, Ives asserts the universal value of his country's music (see HWM Source Reading, page 840).
Many of Ives's later pieces have programs celebrating American life. Three Places in New England presents orchestral pictures of: The first African-American regiment in the Civil War A band playing at a Fourth of July picnic A walk by a river with his wife during their honeymoon
A Symphony: New England Holidays captures the spirit of national holidays. Concord Mass., 1840-60, his second piano sonata, pays tribute to the writers in that city at that time: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. The Fourth Symphony, a philosophical work, poses and seeks to answer the "searching questions of What? and Why?" Quotations of American tunes are frequent, often layered on top of each other. Ives frequently mixed styles within a single work.
General William Booth Enters into Heaven (1914; see NAWM 148 and HWM Example 31.15) This song is based on a Vachel Lindsay poem that pictures the founder of the Salvation Army leading the poor and downtrodden into heaven. Although it is an art song, Ives mixes aspects of American vernacular music, church music, and experimental music. Several hymns and American tunes are paraphrased, and a cumulative form leads to an entire verse of the hymn There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.
Opening section (measures 1-18) Ives imitates Booth's bass drum with dissonant chords on the piano. Over the "street beat," the vocal line presents phrases derived from There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.
Second section (measures 19-39) Ives gives each group of followers a different musical characterization. He uses ostinatos, parallel dissonant chords, and other modernist sounds. The hymn tune returns with the refrain.
The "mighty courthouse" (measures 40-81) A crowd is suggested through a rising and falling whole-tone scale in the voice and ostinatos in the piano. The piano paraphrases Oh, Dem Golden Slippers in measures 52-55 with the suggestion of banjo playing. Ives adds a bugle call and a hint of the hymn Onward, Upward in measures 70-74.
The appearance of Jesus (measures 82-91) There Is a Fountain is heard in the piano. This is the first mostly diatonic passage in the song. The slow tempo and soft dynamics suggest the dignity and serenity of Jesus.
Closing section (measures 92-113) The march beat returns in the piano. At the climax, the complete verse of There Is a Fountain is sung. The action stops near the end, and the closing refrain is set twice, over soft arpeggiated chords and then in four-part Protestant harmony. The parade fades away in the distance.
Influence Ives's influence was felt after World War II. He could justifiably be called the founder of the experimental-music tradition in the United States.
Composer and Audience Modernism widened the split between popular and classical music. Modernism targeted those willing to study and listen to a work repeatedly. Such works became favorites of other composers, but were held in disdain by audiences. Films have introduced both excerpts from modernist works and modernist techniques to general audiences. Compositions by all six of the composers mentioned here have found a permanent place in the classical repertory, and interest in their music has tended to increase.