RUGGLES, CARL

born March 11, 1876, Marion, Mass., U.S. died Oct. 24, 1971, Bennington, Vt. American composer, whose works, small in number, are characterized by highly dissonant, nonmetric melodies, wide dynamic range, and rich colouring. Ruggles played the violin for President Grover Cleveland at the age of nine; though a close friend of such innovative and influential composers as Charles Ives and Edgard Varse, he was largely self-taught, save for some music study at Harvard University. For five years following 1912, he conducted an orchestra that he founded at Winona, Minn. He was active in composers' organizations in New York (192333) and taught composition in Florida (1937). A patron made it possible for Ruggles to devote most of his energy to composition and painting. Because Ruggles destroyed his early compositions, he is known only through a few remaining works. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954, and a Ruggles Festival was held at Bowdoin College, Maine, in 1966. Among the works released by Ruggles, The Sun-Treader (for orchestra, 192732) is the longest and most important. It is highly dissonant and complex, rhapsodic and imaginative, characteristics typical of Ruggles' other works. Fond of mystical poetry, he sought sublime, impressionistic effects; this practice led some critics to attack his compositions as being vague and unclear. Ruggles worked over his compositions so that some exist in several different versions. His works include Toys (1919, voice and piano), Men and Angels (1920, 1939, brass), Men and Mountains (first performed, 1924, 1936, orchestra), and other works for orchestra and piano, and the hymn Exaltation (1958).