Ruggles, Carl (1876–1971)

US composer. He was an associate, during the 1920s and 1930s, of the experimentalist composers Charles Ives, Edgard Varèse, and Henry Cowell, trying to forge a new direction in music. His instrumental forms were, however, more conservative than those of other composers, as in his best-known work Sun-Treader (1932) for orchestra, which, typically, uses elements of serialism but in a polyphonic texture.

Ruggles studied at Harvard University with John Knowles Paine. Afterwards he conducted the Symphony Orchestra at Winona, Minnesota, for a time. From 1917 he lived in New York, where his music was performed in concerts organized by Varèse. He also associated with Ives and was an early American exponent of atonalism.

Works Opera The Sunken Bell (composed 1912–23).

Orchestral and chamber Men and Angels (1920), Men (destroyed), Angels for four trumpets and three trombones (revised 1938), Men and Mountains for small orchestra (1924), Portals for 13 strings (1925, revised 1929, 1941 and 1953), Sun-Treader (1932), Evocations for orchestra (1971); concertino for piano and orchestra; Vox clamans in deserto for voice and chamber orchestra; Polyphonic Compositions for three pianos, Evocations, and other works for piano.