American composer of exceptional inventiveness, Charles Ives learned a great deal from his bandmaster father.

He began composing before he went to Yale to study music and where he played the organ.

Afterwards he had a successful career working in insurance and he only composed in his leisure hours.

Eventually his health suffered from the strain and he composed very little after 1927, although his reputation grew.

Ives’s third symphony, for small orchestra, entitled "Camp Meeting", reflects much of his own background, and has separate movement titles "Old Folks Gatherin'", "Children's Day" and "Communion".

The fourth symphony includes a number of hymns and Gospel songs, and his so-called First Orchestral Set, otherwise known as New England Symphony, which depicts three places in New England.

He wrote a number of psalm settings, part-songs and verse settings for unison voices and orchestra.

In his many solo songs he set verses ranging from Shakespeare, Goethe and Heine to Whitman and Kipling, with a number of texts of his own creation.

Relatively well known songs include Shall we gather at the river, The Cage and The Side-Show.

The first of his two string quartets has the characteristic title From the Salvation Army and is based on earlier organ compositions, while the fourth of his four violin sonatas depicts Children's Day at the Camp Meeting.

Much of the earlier organ music, written by Ives when he was a student and an organist in a number of churches, found its way into later compositions.