Charles Ives (1874-1954) was probably one of the mostpsycho-intellectually brilliant, imaginative and flexible Americans toever "walk the land of freedom." A graduate of Yale, he became amulti-millionaire in the American insurance industry, introducingbrilliant innovations within that industry. He also, unlike a fewcomposers, found the time and the money (being a shrewd and practicalbusinessman) to get married and have children.
His accomplishments for which he is best known, however, are those inthe field of music. At the time of its composition, Ives' music wasprobably the most radically modern in history, and by itself had enoughmaterial to serve as the foundation of modern 20th century music. Forexample, at the turn of the century, this eccentric composer createdband works featuring multiple melodies of multiple time signaturesopposing and complimenting each other within the same piece. Ives wasalso a revolutionary atonal composer, who created, essentially withoutprecedent, many atonal works that not only pre-date those ofSchoenberg, but are just as sophisticated, and arguably even more so,than those of the 12-tone serialist.
Among those atonal works was his second, "Concord" piano sonata, one ofthe finest, and some would say the finest, works of classical music byan American. It reflects the musical innovations of its creator,featuring revolutionary atmospheric effects, unprecedented atonalmusical syntax, and surprising technical approaches to playing thepiano, such as pressing down on over 10 notes simultaneously using aflat piece of wood.
What a mischievious creative genius!
And yet, despite the musically innovative nature of these works, from athematic standpoint, they are strictly 19th century. Ives, likeAmerican band-composer Sousa, consciously infused patriotic or"blue-blood" themes into his pieces. In the "Concord," he attempted toproject, within the music, the 19th century philosophical ideas of theAmerican Transcendentalists, who obviously had a great impact on hisworld-view.
Thus, while other atonal composers such as Schoenberg or Berg attemptedto infuse their music with "20th century" themes of hostility, violenceand estrangement within their atonal music, the atonal music of Ivesis, from a thematic standpoint, really quite "tonal."
Ives wrote the following essays as a (very big) set of program notes toaccompany his second piano sonata. Here, he puts forth his elaboratetheory of music and what it represents, and discusses Transcendentalphilosophy a