Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874. Danbury, CT - May 19, 1954. New York, NY) was an American modernist composer. He wrote various experimental pieces of music, including the Concord Sonata, The Unanswered Question and Fourth Symphony. His music combines polytonality, tone clusters, polyrhythm and other unusual techniques, while often quoting from melodies he remembered from his childhood and occasional references to famous composers. Many of his works are also inspired by novelists he enjoyed reading.

Biography

An organ prodigy, Ives was first trained by his bandmaster father, who also instilled a penchant for musical experiment. At Yale University (1894-98) 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 City and over the next three decades he would rise nearly to the top of 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 twenty years, in his spare time, he composed prolifically and with growing confidence and maturity, although during those years his music was rarely heard in public.

Following a serious heart attack in 1918, Ives' health and productivity declined; his last new pieces date from the mid-1920s. He lived his last decades as an invalid in New York City and West Redding, Conn., promoting his music as best he could and revising pieces.

"Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ear lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently -- possibly almost invariably -- analytical and impersonal test will show that when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep."

attributed to Charles Ives but source unknown

Frank Zappa and Charles Ives

Frank Zappa included Charles Ives in the list of names on the Freak Out! cover, under the heading: These People Have Contributed Materially in Many Ways to Make Our Music What it is. Please Do Not Hold it Against Them.

In 1969 he composed a track titled after Ives, Charles Ives (The Track). Its drum track can be heard during The Blimp on Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. The full track was only released in full on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 5, while the drumtrack was also added as part of Didja Get Any Onya? on the CD re-release of Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Ueli Wiget, Dietmar Wiesner and Hermann Kretzschmar confirmed in a 2021 interview that Zappa's interest in working with the Ensemble Modern was sparked after listening to their CD recordings of Charles Ives and Conlon Nancarrow.

Frank Zappa about Charles Ives

On Absolutely Free, our second album, there's a twisted reference to Charles Ives at the end of Call Any Vegetable. One of the things that Ives is noted for is his use of multiple colliding themes -- the musical illusion of several marching bands marching through each other. In our low-rent version, the band splits into three parts, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" all at the same time, yielding an amateur version of an Ives collision. Unless listeners pay attention in that one spot, there are only a few bars of it, they might think it was a "mistake".

The Real Frank Zappa Book

See also

Zappa's composition Charles Ives

External links

• Wikipedia:Charles Ives

Streams

• The Fourth of July from New England Holidays
• Apple Music
• Spotify

https://www.zappanews.co.uk/interviews/ensemble-modern