Biography of Ives, Charles. Charles Edward Ives: biography Charles Ives space landscape message

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Style

Ives' work was heavily influenced by the folk music he listened to in his rural provincial childhood - folk songs, spiritual and religious hymns. Ives' unique musical style combines elements of folklore, traditional everyday music with complex, sharp, dissonant atonal and polytonal harmonies, sound imaging techniques. He developed an original serial writing technique, using the means of the quarter-tone system.

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Literature about the composer

• Ivashkin A. Charles Ives and the Music of the Twentieth Century. Moscow: Soviet Composer, 1991.
• Schneerson G. M. Ives Charles Edward // Musical Encyclopedia in 6 volumes, TSB, M., 1973-1982, Vol. 1, p. 74-75.
• Akopyan L. O. Music of the 20th century: an encyclopedic dictionary / Scientific editor Dvoskina E.M. - M .: "Practice", 2010. - S. 21-23. - 855 p. - 2500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89816-092-0.
• Rakhmanova M. Charles Ives, SM, 1971, no. 6, p. 97-108.
• Cowell H. Cowell S.R. Charles Ives and His Music. New York: Oxford UP, 1955.
• Rossiter F.R. Charles Ives and his America. New York: Liveright, 1975.
• Block G. Charles Ives: a bio-bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
• Burkholder J.P. All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing. New Haven: Yale UP, 1995.
• Charles Ives and his world, ed. by J. Peter Burkholder. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press, 1996 (collection of papers).
• Swafford J. Charles Ives: A Life with Music. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
• Sherwood G. Charles Ives: a guide to research. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Coland A. The Ives case in our new music, N. Y., 1941.
• Letters from Ch. Ives to N. Slonimsky, in: Slonimsky N., Music since 1900, N. Y., 1971, p. 1318-48.

Links

• (unavailable link since 05-09-2013 (2140 days))

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An excerpt characterizing Ives, Charles

I tried to calm down, took a deep breath and tried again. Only this time I didn’t try to touch anything, but decided to just think about what I want - for example, to have a cup in my hand. Of course, this did not happen, she again just moved sharply. But I rejoiced!!! All my insides just squealed with delight, because I already understood that it was sharp or not, but it happened just at the request of my thought! And it was absolutely amazing! Of course, I immediately wanted to try the “novelty” on all the living and non-living “objects” around me ...
The first one I came across was my grandmother, who at that moment was calmly preparing her next culinary “work” in the kitchen. It was very quiet, my grandmother was humming something to herself, when suddenly a heavy cast-iron frying pan jumped like a bird on the stove and crashed to the floor with a terrible noise ... Grandmother jumped in surprise no worse than the same frying pan ... But, we must pay tribute to her, immediately pulled herself together and said:
- Stop doing that!
I felt a little offended, because, no matter what happened, out of habit, they always blamed me for everything (although at the moment this, of course, was the absolute truth).
- Why do you think it's me? I asked pouting.
“Well, we don’t seem to have ghosts yet,” Grandma said calmly.
I loved her very much for her equanimity and unshakable calmness. It seemed that nothing in this world could truly "unsettle her." Although, naturally, there were things that upset her, surprised or made her sad, but she perceived all this with amazing calmness. And so I always felt very comfortable and secure with her. Somehow, I suddenly felt that my last “trick” interested my grandmother ... I literally “felt in my gut” that she was watching me and waiting for something else. Well, of course, I didn’t keep myself waiting long ... After a few seconds, all the “spoons and ladles” hanging over the stove flew down with a noisy roar behind the same pan ...
- Well, well ... Breaking - not building, would have done something useful, - my grandmother said calmly.
I choked with indignation! Well, please tell me, how can she treat this "incredible event" so coolly?! After all, this is ... SUCH !!! I couldn’t even explain what it was, but I certainly knew that it was impossible to treat what was happening so calmly. Unfortunately, my indignation did not make the slightest impression on my grandmother, and she again calmly said:
Don't waste so much energy on something you can do with your hands. Better go read it.
My indignation knew no bounds! I couldn’t understand why something that seemed so amazing to me didn’t cause her any delight?! Unfortunately, at that time I was still too small a child to understand that all these impressive “external effects” really do not give anything but the same “external effects” ... And the essence of all this is just intoxication with the “mysticism of the inexplicable” gullible and impressionable people, which my grandmother, of course, was not ... But since I had not yet matured to such an understanding, at that moment I was only incredibly interested in what else I could move. Therefore, without regret, I left my grandmother who “did not understand” me and moved on in search of a new object of my “experiments” ...
At that time, my father's favorite lived with us, a beautiful gray cat - Grishka. I found him sleeping sweetly on a warm stove and decided that this was just a very good moment to try my new “art” on him. I thought it would be better if he sat at the window. Nothing happened. Then I concentrated and thought harder... Poor Grishka flew off the stove with a wild cry and crashed his head against the window sill... I felt so sorry for him and so ashamed that I, all around guilty, rushed to pick him up. But for some reason, the unfortunate cat's fur suddenly stood on end and, meowing loudly, rushed away from me, as if scalded by boiling water.
For me it was a shock. I did not understand what happened and why Grishka suddenly disliked me, although before that we were very good friends. I chased him almost the whole day, but, unfortunately, I could not beg forgiveness for myself ... His strange behavior lasted four days, and then our adventure, most likely, was forgotten and everything was fine again. But it made me think, because I realized that, without wanting it myself, with the same unusual “abilities” I can sometimes harm someone.
After this incident, I became much more serious about everything that unexpectedly manifested in me and “experimented” much more carefully. All the following days, of course, I just fell ill with a “movement” mania. I mentally tried to move everything that caught my eye ... and in some cases, again, I got very deplorable results ...
So, for example, I watched in horror as the shelves of neatly folded, very expensive, daddy's books "organized" fell to the floor and with shaking hands I tried to put everything back in place as quickly as possible, since books were a "sacred" object in our house and before you take them - you had to earn them. But, to my happiness, dad was not at home at that moment and, as they say, this time it “swept through” ...
Another very funny and at the same time sad incident happened to my father's aquarium. My father, as far as I can remember, was always very fond of fish and dreamed of one day building a large aquarium at home (which he later did). But at that moment, for lack of a better place, we just had a small round aquarium that could only hold a few colorful fish. And since even such a small “living corner” brought spiritual joy to dad, everyone in the house looked after him with pleasure, including me. ( 1954-05-19 ) (79 years old)

Style

Ives' work was heavily influenced by the folk music he listened to in his rural provincial childhood - folk songs, spiritual and religious hymns. Ives' unique musical style combines elements of folklore, traditional everyday music with complex, sharp, dissonant atonal and polytonal harmonies, sound imaging techniques. He developed an original serial writing technique, using the means of the quarter-tone system.

Write a review on the article "Ives, Charles"

Literature about the composer

• Ivashkin A. Charles Ives and the Music of the Twentieth Century. Moscow: Soviet Composer, 1991.
• Schneerson G. M. Ives Charles Edward // Musical Encyclopedia in 6 volumes, TSB, M., 1973-1982, Vol. 1, p. 74-75.
• Akopyan L. O. Music of the 20th century: an encyclopedic dictionary / Scientific editor Dvoskina E.M. - M .: "Practice", 2010. - S. 21-23. - 855 p. - 2500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89816-092-0.
• Rakhmanova M. Charles Ives, SM, 1971, no. 6, p. 97-108.
• Cowell H. Cowell S.R. Charles Ives and His Music. New York: Oxford UP, 1955.
• Rossiter F.R. Charles Ives and his America. New York: Liveright, 1975.
• Block G. Charles Ives: a bio-bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
• Burkholder J.P. All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing. New Haven: Yale UP, 1995.
• Charles Ives and his world, ed. by J. Peter Burkholder. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press, 1996 (collection of papers).
• Swafford J. Charles Ives: A Life with Music. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
• Sherwood G. Charles Ives: a guide to research. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Coland A. The Ives case in our new music, N. Y., 1941.
• Letters from Ch. Ives to N. Slonimsky, in: Slonimsky N., Music since 1900, N. Y., 1971, p. 1318-48.

Links

• (unavailable link since 05-09-2013 (2140 days))

An excerpt characterizing Ives, Charles

“It all depends on upbringing,” said the guest.
“Yes, you are right,” continued the Countess. “Until now, thank God, I have been a friend of my children and enjoy their full confidence,” the countess said, repeating the error of many parents who believe that their children have no secrets from them. - I know that I will always be the first confidente [attorney] of my daughters, and that Nikolenka, in her ardent character, if she is naughty (the boy cannot do without it), then everything is not like these St. Petersburg gentlemen.
“Yes, nice, nice guys,” the count confirmed, always resolving questions that were confusing for him by finding everything glorious. - Look, I wanted to be a hussars! Yes, that's what you want, ma chere!
“What a lovely creature your little one is,” said the guest. - Gunpowder!
“Yes, gunpowder,” said the count. - She went to me! And what a voice: even though my daughter, but I'll tell the truth, there will be a singer, Salomoni is different. We took an Italian to teach her.
- Is not it too early? They say it is harmful for the voice to study at this time.
- Oh, no, how early! the count said. - How did our mothers get married at twelve thirteen?
“She is in love with Boris even now!” What? said the countess, smiling softly, looking at Boris's mother, and, apparently answering the thought that always occupied her, she continued. - Well, you see, if I held her strictly, I forbid her ... God knows what they would do on the sly (the countess understood: they would kiss), and now I know her every word. She herself will come running in the evening and tell me everything. Maybe I spoil her; but, really, it seems to be better. I kept my elder strictly.
“Yes, I was brought up in a completely different way,” said the eldest, beautiful Countess Vera, smiling.
But a smile did not adorn Vera's face, as is usually the case; on the contrary, her face became unnatural and therefore unpleasant.
The eldest, Vera, was good, she was not stupid, she studied well, she was well brought up, her voice was pleasant, what she said was fair and appropriate; but, strange to say, everyone, both the guest and the countess, looked back at her, as if surprised why she had said this, and felt awkward.
“They are always wise with older children, they want to do something extraordinary,” said the guest.
- What a sin to conceal, ma chere! The countess was wiser with Vera, said the count. - Well, yes, well! all the same, she came out glorious,” he added, winking approvingly at Vera.
The guests got up and left, promising to arrive at dinner.
- What a manner! Already sitting, sitting! - said the countess, seeing off the guests.

When Natasha came out of the living room and ran, she only ran as far as the flower shop. In this room she stopped, listening to the conversation in the living room and waiting for Boris to come out. She was already beginning to get impatient and, stamping her foot, was about to cry because he was not walking right away, when not quiet, not quick, decent steps of a young man were heard.
Natasha quickly rushed between the tubs of flowers and hid.
Boris stopped in the middle of the room, looked around, brushed a speck off the sleeve of his uniform with his hand, and went up to the mirror, examining his handsome face. Natasha, hushed, peered out of her ambush, waiting for what he would do. He stood for some time in front of the mirror, smiled and went to the exit door. Natasha wanted to call him, but then changed her mind. Let him search, she told herself. As soon as Boris left, a flushed Sonya came out of another door, whispering something angrily through her tears. Natasha refrained from her first movement to run out to her and remained in her ambush, as if under an invisible cap, looking out for what was happening in the world. She experienced a special new pleasure. Sonya whispered something and looked back at the drawing-room door. Nicholas came out of the door.
– Sonya! What happened to you? Is it possible? Nikolay said, running up to her.
“Nothing, nothing, leave me!” Sonya sobbed.
- No, I know what.
- Well, you know, and fine, and go to her.
- Sooonya! One word! Is it possible to torment me and yourself like that because of fantasy? Nikolai said, taking her by the hand.
Sonya did not tear her hand away from him and stopped crying.
Natasha, without moving or breathing, looked from her ambush with shining heads. "What will happen now"? she thought.
– Sonya! I don't need the whole world! You alone are everything to me,” Nikolai said. - I'll prove it to you.
“I don't like it when you talk like that.
- Well, I won’t, sorry, Sonya! He pulled her towards him and kissed her.
"Oh, how good!" Natasha thought, and when Sonya and Nikolai left the room, she followed them and called Boris to her.
“Boris, come here,” she said with a significant and sly air. “I need to tell you one thing. Here, here,” she said, and led him into the flower shop to the place between the tubs where she had been hidden. Boris, smiling, followed her.
What is this one thing? - he asked.
She was embarrassed, looked around her and, seeing her doll thrown on a tub, took it in her hands.
“Kiss the doll,” she said.
Boris looked into her lively face with an attentive, affectionate look and did not answer.
- You do not want? Well, then come here, - she said and went deeper into the flowers and threw the doll. - Closer, closer! she whispered. She caught the officer by the cuffs with her hands, and solemnity and fear were visible in her reddened face.
- Do you want to kiss me? she whispered in a barely audible voice, looking at him from under her brows, smiling and almost crying with excitement.
Boris blushed.
- How funny you are! he said, leaning towards her, blushing even more, but doing nothing and waiting.

Probably, if the musicians of the early XX century. and on the eve of the First World War, they learned that the composer C. Ives lives in America and heard his works, they would have treated them as a kind of experiment, a curiosity, or they would not have noticed at all: he himself and that soil on which he has grown. But then no one knew Ives - for a very long time he did nothing at all to promote his music. Ives' "discovery" took place only at the end of the 1930s, when it turned out that many (and, moreover, very different) methods of the newest musical writing had already been tested by an original American composer in the era of A. Scriabin, C. Debussy and H. Mahler. By the time Ives became famous, he had not composed music for many years and, seriously ill, cut off contact with the outside world. "An American tragedy" called the fate of Ives one of his contemporaries. Ives was born into the family of a military conductor. His father was a tireless experimenter - this trait also passed to his son (For example, he instructed two orchestras walking towards each other to play different works.) From childhood and youth spent in a patriarchal environment, Ives' "hearing" of America begins the “openness” of his work, which absorbed, probably, everything that sounded around. In many of his compositions, echoes of Puritan religious hymns, jazz, minstrel theater sound. As a child, Charles was brought up on the music of two composers - J. S. Bach and S. Foster (a friend of Ives's father, an American "bard", author of popular songs and ballads). Serious, alien to any vanity attitude to music, sublime structure of thoughts and feelings, Ives will later resemble Bach.

Ives wrote his first works for a military band (he played percussion instruments in it), at the age of 14 he became a church organist in his hometown. But he also played the piano in the theater, improvising ragtime and other pieces. After graduating from Yale University (1894-1898), where he studied with X. Parker (composition) and D. Buck (organ), Ives works as a church organist in New York. Then for many years he served as a clerk in an insurance company and did it with great passion. Subsequently, in the 1920s, moving away from music, Ives became a successful businessman and a prominent specialist (author of popular works) on insurance. Most of Ives's works belong to the genres of orchestral and chamber music. He is the author of five symphonies, overtures, program works for orchestra (Three Villages in New England, Central Park in the Dark), two string quartets, five sonatas for violin, two for pianoforte, pieces for organ, choirs and more than 100 songs. Ives wrote most of his major works for a long time, over several years. In the Second Piano Sonata (1911-15), the composer paid tribute to his spiritual predecessors. Each of its parts depicts a portrait of one of the American philosophers: R. Emerson, N. Hawthorne, G. Topo; the entire sonata bears the name of the place where these philosophers lived (Concord, Massachusetts, 1840-1860). Their ideas formed the basis of Ives' worldview (for example, the idea of ​​merging human life with the life of nature). Ives' art is characterized by a high ethical attitude, his findings were never purely formal, but were a serious attempt to reveal the hidden possibilities inherent in the very nature of sound.

Before other composers, Ives came to many of the modern means of expression. From his father's experiments with different orchestras, there is a direct path to polytonality (simultaneous sounding of several keys), surround, "stereoscopic" sound and aleatorics (when the musical text is not rigidly fixed, but arises from a combination of elements every time anew, as if by chance). Ives' last major project (the unfinished "World" symphony) involved the arrangement of orchestras and the choir in the open air, in the mountains, at different points in space. Two parts of the symphony (Music of the Earth and Music of the Sky) had to sound ... simultaneously, but twice, so that the listeners could alternately fix their attention on each. In some works, Ives approached the serial organization of atonal music earlier than A. Schoenberg.

The desire to penetrate into the bowels of sound matter led Ives to a quarter-tone system, completely unknown to classical music. He writes Three Quarter Tone Pieces for Two Pianos (appropriately tuned) and an article "Quarter Tone Impressions". Ives devoted more than 30 years to composing music, and only in 1922 published a number of works at his own expense. For the last 20 years of his life, Ives has retired from all business, which is facilitated by increasing blindness, heart disease and nervous system. In 1944, in honor of Ives' 70th birthday, a jubilee concert was organized in Los Angeles. His music was highly appreciated by the largest musicians of our century. I. Stravinsky once noted: "Ives' music told me more than novelists describing the American West ... I discovered a new understanding of America in it."

Founder of the new American composer school of the 20th century.

Charles Edward Ives English Charles Edward Ives
(1913)
basic information
Date of Birth	The 20th of October(1874-10-20 )
Place of Birth	Danbury, Connecticut
Date of death	May 19(1954-05-19 ) (79 years old)
A place of death	New York
Country	USA USA
Professions
Years of activity	1890s - 1926
Tools	organ
Genres	symphony
Awards
charlesives.org
Media files at Wikimedia Commons

Biography

Charles Ives is the son of military conductor George Ives (1845-1894), who became his first music teacher. Since 1887 (from the age of 13) he worked as an organist in the church. He graduated from Yale University (1894-1898), where he studied composition (class of X. Parker) and playing the organ (class of D. Buck). He began composing music in the 90s of the XIX century. Since 1899 - church organist in New York and other cities. He worked in various insurance companies, opened his own business, introduced a number of innovations in real estate insurance. He achieved significant success in the insurance business, which allowed him to support his family, playing music as a hobby. After 1907, heart problems began, diabetes and other diseases were added to this over time. At the beginning of 1927 he stopped composing and soon left the business.

Until the early 1940s, his compositions were rarely performed and practically unknown. Ives was not truly recognized until after his death, when he was declared one of the most significant American composers. The first recognition came in the 1940s, when Ives' work was praised by Arnold Schoenberg. Ives was awarded the Pulitzer Prize () for the 3rd Symphony (1911). In 1951, the premiere of Ives' Second Symphony (-) was conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Style

Ives' work was heavily influenced by the folk music he listened to in his rural provincial childhood - folk songs, spiritual and religious hymns. Ives' unique musical style combines elements of folklore, traditional everyday music with complex, sharp, dissonant atonal and polytonal harmonies, sound imaging techniques. He developed an original serial writing technique, using the means of the quarter-tone system.

Along with Wallingford Rigger, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and John Becker, he was one of the "American Five" avant-garde composers.

Selected writings

for orchestra

• Symphony No. 2 (1902)
• Symphony No. 3 (1904)
• Symphony No. 4 (1916)
• Symphony No. 5 "Holidays in New England" (1913)
• Question left unanswered ()
• Central park at night (Central park in the dark, 1907)
• Three places in New England (Three places in New England, 1903-14)
• "Robert Browning" and other overtures (1901-12)
• Ragtimes (Ragtime dances, 1900-11) for theater orchestra

for piano

• Three Page Sonata (1905)
• Sonata No. 1 (1909)
• Three quartertone pieces ("Three quartertone piano pieces") for two pianos (1924)
• 19 studies for piano (various years)

For other formulations

• Cantata "Celestial country" (Celestial country, ).
• String quartet () and other chamber instrumental ensembles
• 5 violin sonatas (including the fourth sonata for violin and piano - "Children's day at the camp" - "Children's day at the camp meeting",

Trying to explain something new and incomprehensible, we often resort to the method of laying out this incomprehensible according to familiar, simple and clear shelves. There are no such shelves for the Charles Ives phenomenon. But for all its crazy innovation, it is deeply traditional. Here is such a paradox, and, I note, purely American: some parallel with the titanic figure of William Faulkner suggests itself.

The great American composer Charles Ives was born on October 20, 1874 in the provincial town of Danbury (Connecticut), in the family of George Edward Ives, bandmaster of the city brass band. Ives' father was a multi-talented, original man, with an inquisitive mind of a researcher with a constant desire for something new. He experimented a lot in music, being carried away by experiments with splitting the intervals of the tempered scale into quarters and even smaller fractions of tones, and devoted all his free time to musical experiments. Once he made two orchestras, each of which played its own music, march towards each other, which made the strongest impression on little Charlie (its direct echo was embodied much later in Ives' Fourth Symphony).

Ives had a lot of such unusual sound impressions in his childhood. From the age of five, his father began to teach the boy harmony, polyphony, music history, introduced him to the works of Bach and other great classics. Of course, such an unusual teacher could not confine himself to formal classical education. He initiated his son into the element of sound experimentation.

Since childhood, the composer followed in the footsteps of his father: from the age of 12 he played drums in the city orchestra (and at the same time he began to write the first pieces for a brass band), and from the age of 14 he began to work as a church organist. He graduated from Yale University in 1898 with a degree in composition and organ, and obtained a position as organist at New Haven's main church. But in the same year he quits the musical service and becomes an agent of an insurance company. He devoted his free time to creating amazing, unlike anything else music, treating it as a hobby and not particularly striving for performance and publication.

The presentation of the facts, it would seem, paints the image of an unfortunate, unrecognized genius. Don't believe! Ives was passionately involved in insurance, organized his own firm, made a number of innovations in the field of real estate insurance, became a successful businessman and prominent specialist, wrote several popular books and articles. The company "Ives and Myrick" organized by him quickly took one of the first places among the US insurance companies.

Such an unbridled love for all manifestations of life affected health. In 1907, symptoms of heart disease appear, over the years, diabetes and visual impairment are added to this. In 1918, a severe heart attack weakened him so much that he stopped active music lessons. In the early 20s. Ives only completes some of the unfinished, and in 1928 he quits the service. Despite his poor health, Ives lived a long life, barely reaching the age of 80, of which the last 20 practically cut off all ties with the outside world.

Ives was a bright, extraordinary, even strange personality and at the same time a typical American: cheerful and realist. He had no illusions, no particular hope that his music would ever be performed. True, in 1922, summing up the musical path he had traveled, Ives published several small compositions at his own expense.

Te Unanswered Question

But there was one thing that Ives wrote throughout his life and never finished. This is a utopian "Universal Symphony", in which the composer dreamed of embodying the music of nature itself: the vibration of the earth, the noises of the forest, the harmony of the heavenly spheres. Several notes in the score of this grandiose work, which remained in the outlines, Ives entered literally on the eve of his death.

Although Ives led a reclusive life, he was still known to some extent - but only as an odious musical eccentric. In the early 1940s, when Ives was approaching his seventieth birthday, pianist J. Kirkpatrick ventured to perform his grandiose Concorde sonata in New York. At this time, a stream of emigrants who fled from fascism poured into America. Among them were such major musicians as Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. Schoenberg was shocked by such unusual music, met the author, became interested in his work. Not without the influence of Schoenberg in 1947, his Third Symphony, written in 1911, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 1951, Ives' Second Symphony (1907-1909) was premiered by the celebrated Leonard Bernstein.

“Ives' music told me more than the novelists describing the American West… I discovered a new understanding of America in it,” I.F. Stravinsky said.

Not striving for popularity, Ives did not fence himself off from the public. When recognition came to him at the end of his life, he was very happy about it.

Today, Ives is recognized as one of the most significant, and perhaps the most significant composers in the United States.