American composer Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) was an experimental and boldly original pioneer in musical expression. Recognition of his forceful, often eccentric genius came late in his life and much more fully after his death.

Born in Danbury, Conn., on Oct. 20, 1874, of an old New England family, Charles Ives really lived two lives: an outward, tradition-bound public life as an insurance executive, and an inward, musical, and reflective life full of paradoxical and revolutionary ideas.

As a student, Ives was essentially involved in law and business administration programs. However, he received solid musical training, first under his father, who had been a bandleader in the Civil War and, later, at Yale University, under Horatio Parker (a then respected, now nearly forgotten composer and teacher). Musically daring from the first, Ives shocked Parker with some of his student essays. Yet Parker was impressed by, and generally encouraged, his maverick...