Carl Ruggles

USA, 1912–1971

American composer (1876-1971) who wrote perhaps a dozen pieces in sixty years and destroyed most of what else he attempted. Sun-treader is dissonant counterpoint held to a slow burn, and the smallness of the output is the point: he revised a bar for months.

MusicRoots documents 4 artists who influenced Carl Ruggles and 0 artists Carl Ruggles influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Carl Ruggles?

• Henry Cowell — The American contemporary Ruggles is documented as drawing on, and the one who kept getting his music played.
• Claude Debussy — One of the three European modernists behind Ruggles's harmony.
• Igor Stravinsky — Another of them.
• Alexander Scriabin — The third, and the closest to Sun-treader's slow chromatic burn.