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Article: The double life of Charles Ives
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- January 12, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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To think of Charles Ives is, of course, to think of gospel
hymns and Unanswered Questions and Fourth of July parades through
19th-century New England; of a composer who wrote a Concord Sonata
dense with dissonances yet married a wife called Harmony, and whose
sagely bearded visage was rarely to be separated from an
unspeakable, battered old felt hat.
Whether or not it signified a protest against respectability,
the hat was a lasting embarrassment, dating back to Ives's thirties
when he was ostensibly a New York businessman, piling up a fortune
in life insurance. But the beard only appeared some years after a
catastrophic mid-life collapse in his health had more or less put
an end not only ...