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Charles Ives
Believing that he would have to make too many compromises if he chose to follow music as a career, composer Charles Ives decided instead to go into the life insurance business, where he gained notoriety for introducing the concept of estate planning. Even as his career flourished, he continued to compose music as long as his health permitted, becoming the most original and significant American composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, though not recognized as such in his lifetime. To Ives, music and business were not mutually exclusive. He once wrote, “My work in music helped my business and work in business helped my music.”
Ives was born October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut. His father, George, had been a bandleader during the Civil War, where he learned the emotional connection between music and events on the battlefield, a lesson he passed on to his son. George was the band director for the town of Danbury, often leading parades down Main Street. It was largely thanks to George’s musicianship that Danbury was known as “the most musical town in Connecticut.” He was known for his experimental music, and was a strong influence on his son. At age 12, Charles joined his father’s band as a drummer. He also studied piano and cornet with his father, who hoped his son would become a concert pianist. Charles took a different direction when he became the organ player at the Danbury Church. He enrolled at Yale University in 1894, where he studied under the well-known composer Horatio Parker, a strict and demanding professor. Ives’ music classes included studying organ and composition, and as a student he wrote his first two full symphonies.
Ives is credited by musical scholars for being the first to implement many of the devices of Modernism, including polytonality, polyrhythm, free dissonance, and spatial music. In 1908, he composed what would become his most famous work, “The Unanswered Question,” exploring the mysteries of existence. To Ives, questioning creation was more important that discovering the answer. Ives wrote “The Unanswered Question” for solo trumpet, four flutes, and string quartet or string orchestra. It is the trumpet that poses the unanswerable questions, and the wind instruments that become frustrated in their inability to reply.
By 1930, with his health deteriorating, Ives was no longer able to compose. His music had never been appreciated by a wide audience, but that changed when his work was championed by the likes of conductor Nicholas Slonimsky, music critic Henry Bellamann, composer Lou Harrison, and “New Music Quarterly” publisher Henry Cowell, along with John Kirkpatrick. In 1947, Ives received the Pulitzer Prize for his “Symphony No. 3,” composed from 1901-04 and first performed by Harrison in New York in April 1946.
Ives died in 1954, but his reputation as a leading musician of the 20th century has continued to grow since his passing. Festivals in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany have celebrated his work and royalties from his compositions help fund scholarships for young American composers.
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