It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience.

See also
[Portal icon]Biography portal. 3 The Camp Meeting (1908–10)
Central Park in the Dark for chamber orchestra (1906 1909)
The Unanswered Question for chamber group (1906; rev. Ives' idiom like Mahler's employed highly independent melodic lines.

Sources of Ives' tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs the town band at holiday parade the fiddlers at Saturday night dances patriotic songs sentimental parlor ballads and the melodies of Stephen Foster. Over time Ives came to be regarded as an "American original".