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{{Short description|Group of modernist American composers}}
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The '''American Five''' is a collective name applied by some writers to the [[modernism (music)|modernist]] [[United States|American]] [[composer]]s [[Charles Ives]] (1874–1954), [[John J. Becker]] (1886–1961), [[Wallingford Riegger]] (1885–1961), [[Henry Cowell]] (1897–1965), and [[Carl Ruggles]] (1876–1971).<ref>Chase, Gilbert. "American Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present." ''Music & Letters'', Vol. 69, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp. 542-545.</ref><ref>Antokoletz, Elliott (2014). ''A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context'', p.166. Routledge. {{ISBN|9781135037307}}. "[Riegger and Becker] were grouped with Ives, Ruggles, and Cowell as the 'American Five'."</ref> They were noted for their modernist and often [[consonance and dissonance|dissonant]] compositions which broke away from European compositional styles to create a distinctly American style.<ref>[http://www.nypl.org/research/manuscripts/music/musbecke.xml New York Public Library Guide to the John J. Becker Papers]</ref> The name was coined in imitation of the group of [[Russia]]n composers called [[The Mighty Handful (composers)|The Five]].<ref>[http://www.sandiego.edu/symphony/programnotess04.html USD Symphony Program Notes] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509021910/http://www.sandiego.edu/symphony/programnotess04.html |date=May 9, 2008 }}</ref>

The origin of the term "The American Five" is unclear. The five composers, although many of them were known to each other, did not work, or publicise themselves, as a group. According to Don C. Gillespie, "the first use of the phrase [an 'American Five'] seems to have been made by the composer [[John W. Downey|John Downey]] in 1962, the year following Becker's death."<ref>Gillespie, Don C. (1977). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ts8oAQAAMAAJ&q=%22American+Five%22 John Becker: Midwestern Musical Crusader]'', p.iii. Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina.</ref> However, Stuart Feder credits Gillespie, saying that, "Gillespie has called them 'the American Five.'"<ref>Feder, Stuart (1992). ''Charles Ives, "my Father's Song": A Psychoanalytic Biography'', p.346. Yale. {{ISBN|9780300054811}}. "During the early 1930s, the five composers most 'conspicuously concerned with innovation' were Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, Becker, and Wallingford Riegger." See also Feder's {{ISBN|9780521599313}}.</ref> Gilbert Chase says that Gillespie, "the leading authority on Becker," credits Becker as "'the first person to promulgate the theory of the "Ives group," or "The American Five," as it is often called today.'"<ref>Chase, Gilbert (1992). ''America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present'', p.462. University of Illinois. {{ISBN|9780252062759}}.</ref> Stephen Budiansky credits Becker, saying that he, "began insisting that he was one of the 'American Five' great modern composers."<ref>Budiansky, Stephen (2014). ''Mad Music: Charles Ives, the Nostalgic Rebel'', p.231. ForeEdge. {{ISBN|9781611683998}}. "Placing himself alongside Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, and Riegger."</ref> Peter Garland has written that 
[[Dennis Russell Davies]] organized "the 1980 [[Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music|Cabrillo Music Festival]] around my [i.e. Garland's] thesis-idea of 'The American Five'", and found a supporter in [[Lou Harrison]].<ref>Garland, Peter; ed. (1987). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=dYPiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22American+Five%22 A Lou Harrison Reader]'', p.94. Soundings. "(Ives-Ruggles-Riegger-Cowell-Becker)."</ref>

The music historian [[Richard Taruskin]] notes that a group of composers including Becker, Riegger and Ruggles, and also [[Dane Rudhyar]] and [[Ruth Crawford Seeger]], became associated with Cowell during the period when he published the magazine ''The New Music Quarterly'' (1927–1936). The magazine was financed by Ives. Taruskin (who does not use the term 'American Five' in his survey) comments that "the members [of this group] shared both a technical orientation and an expressive purpose which, like Ives's own may be jointly summed up as [[Transcendentalism|transcendental]] [[maximalism]]."<ref>Richard Taruskin, ''Music in the Early Twentieth Century'', [[Oxford University Press]] (2010), {{ISBN|978-0-19-538484-0}}, p. 295.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Atonality]]
*[[Complement (music)#Aggregate complementation|Complementation]]
*[[Dissonant counterpoint]]
*[[Polyrhythm]]
*[[Tone cluster]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{American Five}}
{{Composition schools}}
{{Charles Ives}}

[[Category:20th-century American classical composers]]
[[Category:American male classical composers]]
[[Category:Composition schools]]
[[Category:Modernist composers]]
[[Category:20th-century American male musicians]]
[[Category:Charles Ives]]