Charles Ives

Charles Ives was preoccupied through all his creation to experiment: polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatoric music, quarter tones. He was encouraged on this way since he had been a child: his father was a marching band leader and on weekends the kid was going to the town square where he was listening simultaneously several bands placed in different sides of the square. Hence his first thoughts on bitonal and multitonal harmonization.

His musical biography was dramatic: he made a very successful career in the insurance industry, so he was able to dedicate only his free time for composing. And he was one of the greatest musicians of modern times.


(Musica Nova)