Ives: They Are There

Charles Ives' song "They Are There!" was initially composed for the First World War, but was later revised by Ives and orchestrated by Lou Harrison in 1943, just in time for the Second World War. Charles Ives was born in 1874 to a father who was a bandmaster in his hometown of Danbury, Connecticut. Ives got many of his radical ideas about musical sound and form from his father who would carry out such experiments as marching two bands playing different tunes around the town square so that he could hear what it would sound like when they came together. Ives worked on his music only at night, working days as the president of a prosperous insurance business he had founded in 1907 with business partner Julian Myrick.