Outsider music: classics of American classical music (51) - Henry Cowell - Symphony No.16 "Icelandic" (1962) Henry Cowell: Symphony No.16 "Icelandic" (1962) One of the first and most important American experimentalists, a beacon for people like John Cage. A troubled life, a youth marked by the avant-garde, imprisonment for "obscenity" (due to his bisexuality; indeed, one might imagine a robbery for his years in jail, but it was due to the disgusting medieval inquisition), a return to classical forms, as in this symphony, in his later years. To be rediscovered.