Even after his move in 1899 from Connecticut to Manhattan—to become an insurance actuary, and, nine years later, to co-found a trailblazing agency—Ives continued to play the organ in Protestant churches until 1902. A generation later, Virgil Thomson and Leo Sowerby followed his lead, by no means common among American composers. Although Ives composed for the organ as a young man, including a sonata he once likened to Mendelssohn's, only four works survived—all written between 1888 and 1897. The 17-year-old composer introduced the second of these, originally called "Variations Etc. on National Hymn," at Brewster, New York on July 4, 1891. Before he submitted it for publication, young Ives jettisoned the "Etc." ( a band-like introduction, a roller-coaster coda, and two bitonal Interludes), but retained five tongue-in-cheek variations that follow a soft, solemn statement of "America" (aka, "God Save the Queen"). When publishers predictably rejected it, the piece went into a drawer with a great deal else composed between 1890 and 1928—some works finished, many more incomplete. (By 1930, heart disease, diabetes, and a progressive deterioration of the nervous system left Ives unable any longer to hold a pen).

In 1949, with the composer's cooperation, organist E. Power Biggs reassembled all the materials for publication. In December 1962, he included Variations on "America"—now the official title—on a program dedicating the new organ in Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall (since rebuilt inside and renamed Avery Fisher Hall). Enter William Schuman, who had become the new Center's president in January 1962. He wrote later on that "by the time the piece was over, I knew I simply had to transcribe it...to make as effective an orchestral piece as I could devise without changing any of the musical materials." Broadcast Music Inc. commissioned the task, and it was introduced on May 20, 1964, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by André Kostelanetz.

Schuman stated that he took no liberties with Ives' harmonies or melodies: "all remain exactly as they were in the original." But he needed to invent percussion parts and, since the original registration "was rather inexact," chose "registers which would fit the orchestral timbres I had selected." He did not, however, consider his orchestral version to be "Ives transcribed by Schuman" but rather "Ives/Schuman."

After a rollicking introduction based on segments of the melody, "America" is played very softly by the brass with col legno strings and percussion. The winds dominate an étude-like first variation, complete with flute descants. Variation 2 is woozily sentimental until a barber-shop cadence appears midway and again at the end. Variation 3 contains the first surviving example of Ives' polytonality, a loopy pizzicato waltz in 6/8 time. Variation 4 is a kind of minor-key polonaise, except that tambourine and castanets add a Latin flavoring. Variation 5 is brief and quasi-Baroque before giving way to a marching band and the restored coda.

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