Ives began his String Quartet No. 1 while in college at Yale and finished it by 1902. It is in a late-romantic tonal style influenced by Brahms and Dvorák, but it uses themes paraphrased from the hymn tunes he sang in church and played as an organist (“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains”, “Beulah Land” and “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” among them). By infusing the sound and character of American hymnody into the romantic European string quartet, Ives united two of the musical traditions he loved and claimed a place among the nationalist composers of his day.
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