Carl Ruggles

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Charles Sprague "Carl" Ruggles (1876 – 1971) was an American composer.

He created finely constructed pieces using the term "dissonant counterpoint," a term coined by Charles Seeger to describe Ruggles' music.

His atonal counterpoint was based on a non-serial strategy of avoiding repeating a pitch class until a minimum number of pitches was reached, such as eight pitch classes intervened.

He wrote painstakingly slowly, so his output is quite modest. Ruggles, who was known for his prickly demeanour, Edgard Varèse, Charles Ives, Thomas Hart Benton, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Charles Seeger, among Henry Cowell, Edgard Varèse, Samuel Ives, Thomas Hart Benton, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Charles Seeger, were all colleagues with Henry Cowell, Edgard Varèse, Samuel Ives, Thomas Hart Benton, Thomas Hart Benton, Ruth Crawford Seeger

In his painting "The Suntreader," Benton painted Ruggles.

James Tenney and Merton Brown were among his students.

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, has devoted his life to Ruggles' music, recording the complete works with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and occasionally appearing Sun-Treader with the San Francisco Symphony.

Ruggles, who died young in life, was also a prolific painter, selling hundreds of paintings during his lifetime.

Early life

Carl Ruggles was born in Marion, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1876. His surname derives from Rugeley, Staffordshire, England, where many people immigrated to Boston in the year 1637. Several of Ruggles' ancestors served in important military and political roles during the early Massachusetts colony, including generals and captains, as well as Micah Haskell Ruggles, a former Massachusetts General Court representative (1833-38).

Nathaniel Ruggles and Maria Josephine Ruggles (née Hodge), a native of New Hampshire and step-cousin of former US President Franklin Pierce, was born to parents Nathaniel Ruggles and Maria Josephine Ruggles (née Hodge). Carl began to play guitar early on, and at age six, he made his own violin from a cigar box. He recalled his mother, Maria, performing to him traditional songs from Stephen C. Foster and other folk hymns. Ruggles will get a quarter-size violin from a local lighthouse keeper and keep playing by ear. "I began playing hornpipes and jigs by ear; I couldn't read a note; people would come for miles to see me perform those hornpipes," Ruggles says. In 1885, when then-president Grover Cleveland spent a summer in Marion, he would attend one of Ruggles' roadside performances, and the nine-year-old Carl performed a string of violin duets with first lady Rose Cleveland.

Maria, the Ruggles' mother, died when he was fourteen years old and was later raised in Lexington by his uncle and grandmother. After his wife's death, Ruggles' father became an alcoholic and was believed to have a gambling problem that was exorbitant, according to the majority of the family's inheritance. Ruggles was never close to his father, and he didn't see him from the age of 29 to 40. At an early age, he changed Charles to Teutonic Carl, perhaps due in part to his love for German composers, particularly Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Despite the fact that he never legally changed it, he signed all papers and works in his adult life as "Carl Ruggles." In 1892, he was appointed as the director of the YMCA orchestra. "A musical program of entertainment was introduced in the cathedral," a reviewer said, each of whom received adoration. Master Charles Ruggles' violin selections were greeted with a great deal of passion and delicacy. He captured the audience by his manly demeanor and is evidently at home in the concert hall.

Later life and death

He continued to live and compose in New York until 1938, when he began teaching composition at the University of Miami, where he remained until 1943. He then moved to a one-room school in Vermont, where he spent his time revising compositions and painting. Throughout his lifetime, he created hundreds of paintings, and he was given the opportunity to have one-man shows.

In 1963, he was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

Ruggles "spoke with an earthiness that shocked many people," Donal Henahan says. He smoked cigarettes and told shady stories. He insulted his fellow composers, sneering at almost every part but Ives. He refused to perform as the genteel artist. Ruggles, who was known for his profanity, was also anti-semitic. For example, he wrote to Henry Cowell about "that filthy bunch of Juilliard Jews... cheap, without dignity, and with no or no talent," mainly attacking Arthur Berger. After the 1949 appearance of the Angels because of the older composer's ethnicity, Lou Harrison resigned himself from Ruggles, referring specifically to Ruggles' luncheon at Pennsylvania Station in New York, where Ruggles yelled anti-black and anti-semitic slurs.

In 1957, Ruggles' mother died. Micah was their son. Ruggles died in Bennington, Vermont, on October 24, 1971, after a long illness.

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Career

C.W. 1899, C.W. Thompson & Co. published Ruggles' first compositions, three songs titled How Can I Be Blythe and Glad, At Sea and Maiden with Thy Mouth of Roses. The first song is one of two living compositions from his youth; the rest are said to have been destroyed by Ruggles himself. Ruggles had to work to assist himself as his family's financial situation worsened. He held a variety of odd jobs and began to teach violin and music theory privately, but teaching didn't bring much money or success. He began writing music criticism for the Belmont Tribune and the Watertown Tribune in 1902. This continued until 1903 in July. Ruggles' reviews are characterized by their brashness. He did not hesitate to speak out, whether laudatory or not.

He met Charlotte Snell, a contralto, in 1906. Ruggles began looking for stable jobs so that he and Charlotte could marry. He went to Winona, Minnesota, to work as a violin teacher for the Mar D'Mar School of Music. He performed as a soloist as well as directing the Winon Symphony Orchestra. Charlotte joined him as a Mar d'Mar vocal coach. After the music school closed, Ruggles continued to direct the symphony. Charlotte was a choir mistress at the First Baptist Church and Ruggles was hired to lead the YMCA orchestra and glee club. They also took private students.

Ruggles began writing an opera based on Gerhart Hauptmann's German play The Sunken Bell. He never finished the opera due to his sluggish composition rate and anti-German sentiment as a result of World War I, though he did submit a version to the Metropolitan Opera. He wrote about what he had written after deciding he had no idea what the stage needed. Ruggles continued to compose, supplementing his income by teaching composition lessons. He wrote Toys for soprano and piano for his son's fourth birthday in 1919, his first composition in his atonal, contrapuntal style.

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