Charles Ives

At 79 years old, Charles Ives physical status not available right now. We will update Charles Ives's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Ives's career and dedication to music began when he started playing drums in his father's band at a young age. Ives published a large collection of songs, many of which had piano parts. He composed two string quartets and other works of chamber music, though he is now best known for his orchestral music. His work as an organist led him to write Variations on "America" in 1891, which he premiered at a recital celebrating the Fourth of July.

In 1906, Ives composed the first radical musical work of the twentieth century, Central Park in the Dark. He composed four numbered symphonies as well as a number of works with the word 'Symphony' in their titles, as well as The Unanswered Question (1908), written for the unusual combination of trumpet, four flutes, and string quartet. The Unanswered Question was influenced by the New England writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Around 1910, Ives began composing his most accomplished works, including the Holiday Symphony and Three Places in New England. The Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., known as the Concord Sonata, was one of his most notable pieces. He started work on this in 1911 and completed most of it in 1915. However, it was not until 1920 that the piece was published. His revised version was not released until 1947. This piece contains one of the most striking examples of his experimentation. In the second movement, he instructed the pianist to use a 14+3⁄4 in (37 cm) piece of wood to create a massive cluster chord. The piece also amply demonstrates Ives's fondness for musical quotation: the opening bars of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 are quoted in each movement. Sinclair's catalogue also notes less obvious quotations of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata and various other works.

Another notable piece of orchestral music Ives completed was his Symphony No. 4. He worked on this from 1910 to 1916. This four-movement symphony is notable for its complexity and vast orchestra. A complete performance of the work was not given until 1965, half a century after it was completed and over a decade after Ives's death.

Ives left behind material for an unfinished Universe Symphony, which he was unable to complete despite two decades of work. This was due to his health problems as well as his shifting ideas of the work.

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