Charles Ives' singular "Thoreau" (1915) begins with a spoken excerpt from Thoreau's Walden, followed by a sung passage that is Ives' own poetic tribute to the hero of the New England transcendentalist movement. The music is partly a reincarnation of Ives' Piano Sonata No. 2 (1910 - 15), which bears the subtitle "Concord, Mass., 1840-1850." Ives' setting resonates harmoniously with images suggested by Thoreau's text, e.g. a "vibratory hum as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp..." The sparse, ethereal accompaniment articulates the peace and solitude of Walden and the ideal of inner peace it signified for Thoreau.

Text:

His meditations are being interrupted only by the faint sound of the Concord bell,

"A melody, as it were, imported into the wilderness. At a distance over the woods the sound acquires a certain vibratory hum as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept ... a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth, interesting to the eyes by the azure tint it imparts."

He grew in those seasons

Like corn in the night,

Rapt in revery,

On the Walden shore,

Amidst the sumach,

Pines and hickories,

In undisturbed solitude.

—Charles Ives/Henry David Thoreau (adapted from Walden)

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