Carl Ruggles

Carl Ruggles (actually Charles Sprague Ruggles, born March 11, 1876 in Marion, Massachusetts, † October 24, 1971 in Bennington, Vermont ) was an American composer and painter.

Ruggles was a student of Albert Spalding and John Knowles Paine. From 1908 to 1912 he headed the Symphony Orchestra in Minneapolis. He then lived in Arlington and in 1937 became a teacher of composition at the University of Miami.

Ruggles composed a few pieces in a very personal, with their wealth dissonance reminiscent of expressionism and strong contrapuntal shaped by style, which he repeatedly reworked and re- instrumented. His entire work together counted only takes about 80 minutes. However, the works, due to consistently regarded by their long and careful preparation as significant. Ruggles was set rather skeptical about the twelve-tone music. He once said: "The row is a dog chasing its tail" ( " The [ twelve-tone ] series is a dog chasing its tail" ).

He was one of the American Five, a loose group of avant-garde composer, who are attributed to him except Charles Ives, Wallingford Riegger, Henry Cowell and John J. Becker. In old age, Ruggles operated primarily as a painter. His pictures are close to abstract expressionism.

Works

• The Sunken Bell, opera ( 1912-13, unfinished and destroyed by the composer, only sketches receive )
• Toys for voice and piano (1919, first recognized composition)
• Men and Angels for five trumpets, bass trumpet ( 1920-21 )
• Vox clamans in deserto, Three Songs for soprano and chamber orchestra based on texts by Robert Browning (1923 )
• Men and Mountains for chamber orchestra (1924 )
• Portals for 13 Strings ( 1925)
• Sun - Treader for large orchestra ( 1926-31 )
• Evocations for Piano ( 1935-43 )
• Organum for orchestra ( 1944-47 )
• Exaltation ( 1958)
• Polyphonic Compositions for Three Pianos

• Composer of classical music ( 20th century)
• American composer
• Born 1876
• Died in 1971
• Man