Composer of the Week – Charles Ives.

Happy Birthday to American composer, Charles Ives, who was born on this day in 1874.

Ives’ father was a band leader, and encouraged him to explore the the possibilities of new modern music styles. He worked as a church organist until his 30’s, and had a very lucrative and famous career has an insurance salesman; composing music was his hobby, not his profession, and he stopped composing about 30 years before his death.

Ives’ popularity as a composer didn’t really happy until the last decade of his life – twenty years after he stopped composing. In 1947 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his Symphony No. 3, which was premiered the year before, although it had been composed almost 40 years before.

His Second Symphony wasn’t premiered until 1951, and his Fourth Symphony wasn’t premiered until 1965; 11 years after his death.

Here is the first movement from Ives’ Symphony No. 2, performed by the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein.

And here’s the third movement from Three Places in New England, probably his most popular work. It’s a three-movement piece that is meant to evoke specific locations in New England.