Ruggles Carl Ruggles

Charles Sprague "Carl" Ruggles (March 11, 1876 – October 24, 1971) was an American composer. He wrote finely crafted pieces using "dissonant counterpoint", a term coined by Charles Seeger to describe Ruggles' music. His method of atonal counterpoint was based on a non-serial technique of avoiding repeating a pitch class until a generally fixed number such as eight pitch classes intervened. He wrote painstakingly slowly so his output is quite small.

Famous for his prickly personality, Ruggles was nonetheless friends with Henry Cowell, Edgard Varèse, Charles Ives, Thomas Hart Benton, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Charles Seeger. Benton even painted Ruggles in his portrait "The Suntreader". His students include James Tenney and Merton Brown. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has championed Ruggles' music, recording the complete works with the Buffalo Philharmonic and occasionally performing Sun-Treader with the San Francisco Symphony. Especially later in life, Ruggles was also a prolific painter, selling hundreds of paintings during his lifetime.

List of compositions

• Ich fühle deinen Odem (1901), song for soprano and piano (edited by John Kirkpatrick)
• Mood (1918), for violin and piano (incomplete, edited by John Kirkpatrick)
• Toys (1919), song for soprano and piano
• Angels (1921), for muted brass. (Originally for six trumpets. Rescored for trumpets and trombones, 1940; transcribed for piano, 1946)
• Men and Angels (1921), for orchestra
• Windy Nights (1921), song for soprano and piano (edited by John Kirkpatrick)
• Vox clamans in deserto (1923), for soprano and chamber orchestra
• Men and Mountains (1924), for orchestra
• Prayer (1924), song for soprano and piano (edited by John Kirkpatrick)
• Portals (1925), for string orchestra
• Sun-Treader (1926–31), for large orchestra - at 16 minutes, Ruggles' longest and best-known work
• Evocations (1934–43), a set of four pieces existing in two versions, originally for solo piano (being revised till 1956) and for orchestra
• Visions (1935–50), for piano
• March (1943–50), for piano (edited by John Kirkpatrick)
• Valse Lente (1945–50), for piano
• Parvum Organum (1945–47), for piano (edited by John Kirkpatrick)
• Organum (1946), (Two versions, for two pianos; for orchestra)
• Exaltation (1958), his last completed work, a hymn dedicated to the memory of his wife.