Sigma Alpha Iota

Winter 2019 18 PAN PIPES THOREAU'S SYMPHONIES Henry David Thoreau's Transcendental Symphonies By Hollis Thoms H enry David oreau (1818- 1862) was a composer because Charles Ives (1874-1954) said so. In his Essays Before a Sonata, Ives wrote that "oreau was a great musician, not because he played the flute but because he did not have to go to Boston to hear 'the Symphony'… (his) susceptibility to natural sounds was probably greater than that of many practical musicians…(and he) seems able to weave from this source some perfect transcendental symphonies." (Essays, 51-53). In his masterpiece, Walden, oreau wrote in various chapters at some length about the transcendental meaning of sound and silence, however, these aesthetic thoughts are in the context of a wider transcendental sermon touching almost every aspect of human existence. Walden is indeed an extraordinary book and my reverence for it extends to owning a first edition of the work. I would go further to say that in his extensive private journal during 1852 and through half of 1853 Henry David oreau was composing Transcendental Symphony 1 (1852) and "Unfinished" Transcendental Symphony 2 (1853). In January 1852 oreau began working on the final dra of Walden. He spent much of his time near home not giving lectures and wrote extensively in his journals. It was during 1852 and 1853 that he became somewhat of a literary hermit in order to complete Walden and a solitary musical composer in order to write his transcendental symphonies. In order to construct the transcendental symphonies composed by oreau, I read through his extensive journals as published by Dover in the two large volumes highlighting with pencil underlines any references to music, sounds, and silence. e two transcendental symphonies began to emerge during 1852 and 1853. oreau did not merely randomly catalogue the bird, animal, environmental, and human sounds he heard, but he began to shape his sound and musical observations into symphonies that extended the entire calendar year. rough all of 1852 and through half of 1853, as oreau listened to the sounds around him, he purposely noted his sound observations in such a way as to put small discrete sounds into a larger musical context. He began creating musical symphonies. Prior to 1852, oreau's musical transcendental philosophy developed more theoretically. He made a number of profound general statements about sound and silence. oreau found that when manmade sounds combined with nature's sounds something transcendent happened, that the "sound" of silence was a part of sound, and that to be intimately connected to nature one must be able to hear the surrounding music. oreau oen played the flute outdoors and he saw that his flute playing became transformed by entering nature's realm:

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