The following pages were written primarily as a preface or reason
for the [writer's] second Pianoforte Sonata--"Concord, Mass.,
1845,"--a group of four pieces, called a sonata for want of a
more exact name, as the form, perhaps substance, does not justify
it. The music and prefaces were intended to be printed together,
but as it was found that this would make a cumbersome volume they
are separate. The whole is an attempt to present [one person's]
impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated
in the minds of many with Concord, Mass., of over a half century
ago. This is undertaken in impressionistic pictures of Emerson
and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts, and a Scherzo supposed to
reflect a lighter quality which is often found in the fantastic
side of Hawthorne. The first and last movements do not aim to
give any programs of the life or of any particular work of either
Emerson or Thoreau but rather composite pictures or impressions.
They are, however, so general in outline that, from some
viewpoints, they may be as far from accepted impressions (from
true conceptions, for that matter) as the valuation which they
purport to be of the influence of the life, thought, and
character of Emerson and Thoreau is inadequate.


I--Prologue


How far is anyone justified, be he an authority or a layman, in
expressing or trying to express in terms of music (in sounds, if
you like) the value of anything, material, moral, intellectual,