Charles Ives

USA, 1898–1927

American composer (1874-1954), regarded as a founder of the American avant-garde. His symphonies and sonatas use polyrhythm, polytonality and quotation collage, written largely in private decades before comparable European work.

MusicRoots documents 2 artists who influenced Charles Ives and 2 artists Charles Ives influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Charles Ives?

• Stephen Foster — Stephen Foster's American folk melodies appear throughout Ives's work as quotation and transformation.
• Ludwig van Beethoven — Beethoven's formal structures were the classical model Ives engaged with, transformed and subverted.

Which artists did Charles Ives influence?

• Henry Cowell — Charles Ives was Cowell's primary mentor and the model for his American experimental thinking.
• John J. Becker — Becker spent decades promoting Ives, named the American Five to put them in the same sentence, and was trusted with orchestrating 'General William Booth Enters into Heaven'.