Charles Ives

Many music lovers consider Ives, who died in 1954, to be the first truly great American composer. A new recording by pianist Donald Berman is a major addition to the Ives discography.

Charles Ives biographer Jan Swafford traces the life of the New England insurance executive who forever transformed the American symphony. Ives's father, a Civil War bandmaster, said any harmony — however radical — was fine. "Nobody," Swafford writes, "had ever told a young composer that before."

Program has rarities from Chabrier and IvesWhile this weekend's program is setup traditionally as an overture, concerto and symphony, the music is more…

This country is always in motion, or as one shipping company calls it "moving at the speed of business." Before the question of slavery became a civil…