Outsider music: classics of American classical music (49) - Carl Ruggles - Angels (1938) Carl Ruggles - Angels {original version for muted brass} Well, here we’re talking about a truly "acrobatic" figure in American music. A composer far from prolific (I have his almost complete edition and it fits into just two CDs), one of the early American modernists (he was born in 1874): very brusque character and ultraconservative ideas, seemingly also racist and segregationist, a bit of everything, really. But he had talent to spare, and his proverbial calmness in writing and reworking allowed us to have few pieces, but of absolute high quality.