Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES Winter 2019 21 THOREAU'S SYMPHONIES reading that one hears the two symphonies of sounds that oreau composed. One example of his literary composing in Symphony 1, occurred in measure "May 1, 1852," when oreau created a complex counterpoint of sounds in a Walt Whitman-like poem of sounds, at 5:00 am, one late spring or early summer morning when all the birds were out singing, announcing the beginning of a new day. • I hear the little forked-tail chipping sparrow shaking out his rapid tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi- tchi…a little jingle, from the oak behind the Depot • I hear the note of the shy Savannah sparrow…whose note sounds so like a cricket's in the grass • I hear a lark in the meadow • I hear a robin amid them • Yet there are fewer singers to be heard than on a very pleasant morning some weeks ago • I hear the first towhee finch..to-wee, to-wee and another…in search of him says whip- your-ch-r-r-r-r-r-r, with a metallic ring • I hear the first catbird also, mewing • And the wood thrush which still thrills me, a sound to be heard in a new country, from one side of a clearing • I think I heard an oven-bird just now, wicher, wicher, wicher, wich • e flicker crackles • I hear a woodpecker tapping • e tinkle of the huckleberry-bird comes up from the shrub oak plain • A partridge burst away from under the rock below me quivering wings, like some moths I have seen • When leaving the woods I heard the hooting of an owl, which sounded very much like a clown calling his team e reader of this "measure" can hear the simultaneity of sounds "composed" by oreau: some sounds louder than others, some repetitive, some singular, some from one side of the "ensemble," some from the other side, some emerging, some sounds in the forefront, some faintly in the background, a variety of timbres- jingle, metallic ring, mewing, crackles, tapping, hooting. oreau ends his Symphony 2 (1853) with a coda on August 22, as if the entire symphony of sounds is winding down to "stillness". At that "final measure" the following sonorities are heard: • I hear but few notes of birds these days; no singing, but merely a few hurried notes or screams or twittering or peeping • A hurried anxious note from a robin • Heard perhaps half dozen aerward • A sharp, loud che-wink from a ground-robin • A goldfinch twitters over; several more heard aerward

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