Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He was one of the first American composers to achieve international renown, although Ives's music was largely ignored in his lifetime, and many of his works remained unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American original." Ives combined the American popular and church music traditions of his youth with European art music and was one of the first composers to embrace 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 for Ives's tonal imagery include hymn and traditional song melodies, a town band in a holiday parade, fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental salon ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.
