Postlude in F

Charles Edward Ives (1874 – 1954) was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though his music was largely ignored during his life, He combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatoric elements, and quarter tones, foreshadowing many musical innovations of the 20th century. Sources of Ives' tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs, the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.
He was born in Danbury, Connecticut, the son ofa U.S. Army bandleader in the American Civil War. George Ives' unique music lessons were also a strong influence on Charles; George Ives took an open-minded approach to musical theory, encouraging his son to experiment in bitonal and polytonal harmonizations. He became a church organist at the age of 14, and wrote various hymns and songs for church services, including his Variations on 'America' , which Ives wrote for a Fourth of July concert in Brewster, New York. In September 1894, Ives entered Yale University, studying under Horatio Parker. Here he composed in a choral style similar to his mentor, writing church music and even an 1896 campaign song for William McKinley. He continued his work as a church organist until May 1902. Soon after Ives graduated from Yale, he started work in the Mutual Life Insurance company of New York. In his spare time he composed music and, until his marriage, worked as an organist in Danbury and New Haven as well as Bloomfield, New Jersey and New York City. He had a remarkably successful career in insurance, and continued to be a prolific composer.