Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954)

Cowell, Henry, and Cowell, Sidney. Charles Ives and His Music. New York: Oxford, 1955. "Ives can, in fact, be shown to be one of the four great creative figures in music in the first half of the twentieth century," along with Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Bartok. Some Connecticut-focused biographical material, but this book is really about Ives' music.

de Lerma, Dominique-Rene. Charles Edward Ives, 1874-1954: A Biography of His Music. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1970. A scholarly study fo­cused on Ives' musical development.

Ives, Charles. Essays Before a Sonata and Other Writings. New York: W. W. Norton, 1961. Manuscript material found after Ives' death. Much of it is biographical and philosophical.

—Memos. Edited by John Kirkpatrick. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972. Ives wrote the Memos to answer questions from people curious about his music. Chronol­ogy, index, appendix material. For the committed Ives buff.

Perlis, Vivian. Charles Ives Remembered. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. This work, which received rave notices when it came out, is a collection of the transcripts of lengthy interviews with numerous people who knew Ives well. Many illustrations.

Perry, Rosalie Sandra. Charles Ives and the American Mind. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1974. Based on a University of Texas dissertation (1971), this is scholarly but fascinating, and short.

Rossiter, Frank R. Charles Ives and His America. New York: Liveright, 1975. Based on a Princeton dissertation (1970), this is an excellent work, but heavy. Not biographical. Ends in 1921. Rossiter has the best Ives bibliography we've seen.

Wouldridge, David. From the Steeples and Mountains: A Study of Charles Ives. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1974. This is our pick of the one to read if you are going to read only one. It is about 350 pages, thorough, readable, and reliable.

Yanni, Robert D. "In the American Grain: Charles Ives and the Transcendentalists," Journal of American Culture. 4(Winter, 1981).