Gregory Spears

I have long admired Thoreau’s prose, both for its ideas as well as its stylistic beauty. For this song cycle, I selected a series of excerpts from Walden divided into four structurally interconnected songs and a final coda. These fragments are arranged to loosely tell the story of Thoreau’s departure from and return to society in Concord, MA. Along the way we see Thoreau’s progression from anxious social critic, to passionate naturalist, to contemplative mystic. The cycle ends with a coda, setting one of Walden’s most cryptic passages concerning “a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove.” I began composing with spartan materials: a two-note melody supported by piano textures resembling simple finger exercises. As I continued working, the music became more elaborate through the layering and transforming of these humble ideas. Along the way I was inspired by Thoreau’s challenge that we should look for the sublime in the simplest, most common materials.

– Gregory Spears