- American composer,
whose technical innovations and freedom of imagination anticipated a
great deal of 20th-century music.
Born in Danbury, Connecticut, Ives received his most significant musical
education from his father, George E. Ives, a bandmaster and highly
original musical thinker.
After graduating from Yale University in 1898, Ives worked in New York
City as an insurance clerk and church organist. In 1906 he founded his
own insurance company; his innovations in the insurance field include
the practice of estate planning.
Realizing that his music was too unconventional to provide a living,
he composed primarily for his own pleasure and, except for works for
organ and church choirs, most of his compositions remained unperformed.
After ill health forced Ives to retire in 1930, he wrote no more music.
In the decades that followed interest in his music grew, and many of
his works received long-delayed first performances.
Ives's music is rich in Americana. He quotes, distorts, combines, and
disguises familiar church and revival hymns, marches, and songs from
the American Civil War (1861-1865). Much of the dissonance in his music
stems from the clash of keys or large blocks of sound, as in the approach
of two parade bands in Three Places in New England (1903-1914).
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