# Henry David Thoreau on Music



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Just stumbled on to this great quote attributed to Thoreau: 

"Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it."~ Henry David Thoreau


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I think old Henry got it right. Music does not appear to be an important part of the lives of a large majority of people, in that they rarely will volunteer any information about their musical interests in ordinary conversation unless asked--it almost never comes up otherwise. I think the people absorbed by music flock here and to other forums so that they can get a sense that they are not alone in their enthusiasms. It may correlate with early and continuing exposure to music from an early age, coupled with perhaps a greater susceptibility to its power.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Thoreau got a lot right. He was one of my early heroes, growing up.


Henry David Thoreau said:


> "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

I think Thoreau is going even deeper than that. 

How can we listen to something like Beethoven’s late string quartets, be profoundly “moved”, yet carry on mindlessly enacting our daily routines as if nothing happened to us, as if we hadn’t heard the music at all. In other words, where is music’s transformative power evident in our lives? What does it mean exactly to “act out” the ethic expressed in the best music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert? Why, outside of the experiential thrall of the concert or the recording, are we so unmoved by music? These are the thoughts and questions that come to mind after reading this quote.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Littlephrase said:


> I think Thoreau is going even deeper than that.
> 
> How can we listen to something like Beethoven's late string quartets, be profoundly "moved", yet carry on mindlessly enacting our daily routines as if nothing happened to us, as if we hadn't heard the music at all. In other words, where is music's transformative power evident in our lives? ...


I think that in carrying the discussion forward you have written in the true spirit of Thoreau. He takes things forward, probes more keenly. In _Walden_ there are the well-known passage "The Railway Cut," and a long disquisition on "lobes," where he moves us from the everyday into considering Nature deeply. Not for nothing is he known as one of the New England Transcendentalists. I don't know if he shows up too much in classical music -- perhaps in Ives?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

arpeggio said:


> Just stumbled on to this great quote attributed to Thoreau:
> 
> "Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it."~ Henry David Thoreau


*arpeggio* -- Excellent idea for a thread!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Littlephrase said:


> I think Thoreau is going even deeper than that.
> 
> How can we listen to something like Beethoven's late string quartets, be profoundly "moved", yet carry on mindlessly enacting our daily routines as if nothing happened to us, as if we hadn't heard the music at all. In other words, where is music's transformative power evident in our lives? What does it mean exactly to "act out" the ethic expressed in the best music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert? Why, outside of the experiential thrall of the concert or the recording, are we so unmoved by music? These are the thoughts and questions that come to mind after reading this quote.


We are not as gods, who have no need of music, but instead are merely human. We can actually focus effectively on just one thing at a time, hence our involvement and engagement with music precludes our effectively transforming its power to uplift us into a continuing benevolence. For some, the thirst is ongoing and we must return to the well periodically. Others, the majority, feel no thirst at all.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I spent a reasonable number of youthful summer days fishing unsuccessfully in Walden Pond, and have to admit to thinking of Thoreau more as a misanthrope than an icon.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I often think misanthropy to be a sign of great wisdom sorrowfully obtained. But then I see and hear an orchestra playing and am made to feel somewhat more benevolent for a brief time.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Thoreau WAS a misanthrope. He was Ted Kaczynski without the bombs.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

In his journal, Thoreau writes of listening to the sounds of nature, the sounds of "rocks - and trees - and beasts". From time to time, he played his flute as a response to the music he heard. For Thoreau this "Unpremeditated music is the true gage which measures the current of our thoughts - the very undertow of our life's stream". To Thoreau, music is of utmost importance, the very essence of life itself. According to him, music links humankind to nature, to the universal divine, and it offers to those who listen closely the potential for transcendence.

For Thoreau, music that can become "the very undertow of our life's stream" has to fulfill one requirement: it has to be unpremeditated, created without intention, without deliberation, a mere accidental act. Concert halls cannot serve as the origin for this kind of music. In Thoreau's eyes, concert music suffers from an over-cultivation; it has been domesticated. It has lost its spontaneity, vitality and most importantly its affinity with life, i.e. nature. In Thoreau's understanding, nature is wild, beautiful and good, and its sounds have the same qualities. A symphony follows a well known structure. Every sound is planned in advance, notated in the score and practiced by the musicians prior to performance. Even though Thoreau never clearly condemns the kind of music that could be heard at the Boston Symphony and other concert halls, he openly prefers the sounds of nature he finds in his immediate surrounding.

In nature, sounds are neither planned nor structured according to some organizing principle, they simply happen. They're always unpremeditated. By aligning these sounds which some might refer to as noise with music, Thoreau broadened the definition of music considerably and paved the way for modern composers such as John Cage, who makes the so-called noise an integral part of his compositions.


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

NoCoPilot said:


> Thoreau WAS a misanthrope. He was Ted Kaczynski without the bombs.


Thoreau wasn't a misanthrope. He never turned his back on civilization. So he lived in a cabin for a couple of years. He had friends, he took an interest in what his contemporaries were doing, he followed current events, spoke out against injustice and championed those who were trying to make the world a better place to live (John Brown). He traveled, not far but he did travel, and read of others travels. He corresponded. He also wasn't an anarchist. He thought that eventually humanity would reach a point where they didn't need government, but until then should strive for better government.

Poor equation, by the way.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

gregorx said:


> Thoreau also wasn't an anarchist. He thought that eventually humanity would reach a point where they didn't need government, but until then should strive for better government.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> That government is best which governs least.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.... where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,-the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lovers of law and order, who observe the law when the government breaks it.





Henry David Thoreau said:


> What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity-who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.


If those don't sound like _Industrial Society and its Future_ I don't know what does.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

None of that suggests misanthropy.



> Definition of misanthropy
> : a hatred or distrust of humankind


Disliking the idea of a strong government, if anything, sounds philanthropic.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm sure he would have had interesting discussions with John Cage if they met.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

NoCoPilot said:


> If those don't sound like _Industrial Society and its Future_ I don't know what does.


Thoreau's target was slavery, and its sanction by the government brought into being by the US Constitution. Slavery would have continued on unless an even stronger government powered by the popular will under Lincoln had not intervened to thwart the weaker government of the secessionists from having its own way. It is not so much a matter of strong v. weak v. no government; it is a matter of the moral quality of those governing.


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