biography
| name: |
Ives, Charles (Edward)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1874–1954)
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| biography:
| Composer, born in Danbury, Connecticut, USA. An organ prodigy, he was first trained by his bandmaster father, who also instilled a penchant for musical experiment. At Yale (1894–8) he learned much from the conservative Horatio Parker, but in view of his advanced musical ideas he decided not to pursue a career in music. After college he entered the insurance business in New York and over the next three decades he rose high in that profession. At the same time, after leaving his last church-organist job in 1902, he began a perhaps unprecedented period of creative isolation for a major composer. For 20 years, in his spare time, he composed prolifically and with growing confidence and maturity, though during those years his music was rarely heard in public. His important works, all marked by a unique blend of prophetic experiment and familiar American material, include the Concord Sonata, Three Places in New England, the Holidays Symphony, and the Fourth Symphony. Following a serious heart attack (1918), his health and productivity declined, and his last new pieces date from the mid-1920s. He lived his last decades as an invalid in New York City and West Redding, CT, promoting his music as best as he could and revising pieces. Various enthusiasts gradually spread his music into the world. |
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