The Tonic of Wildness

By 1850, people in New York City were beginning to feel the compounding stress of living in such a heavily urban environment. Ken Burns explains in his documentary New York that the early grid system which had defined the city’s layout had failed “to provide enough park space for New York’s overcrowded and overworked citizens. Half a century of explosive growth had transformed much of lower Manhattan into a congested wasteland of factories, warehouses, and tenements. For most New Yorkers, there was simply no escape.” A few years later, 843 acres of land in the middle of Manhattan would be transformed into an urban oasis: Central Park.

Around this same time, Henry David Thoreau emerged from the woods after living by himself for over two years, and recounted, “our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness.” Thoreau understood there was something invigorating about being in nature, as did people like John Muir, who eventually founded the Sierra Club. For Muir, “in God’s wildness lies the hope of the world — the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.” Decades later, following in Muir’s footsteps, Sigurd F. Olson would also preach that “wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.”

The three pieces of music I wrote before writing The Tonic of Wildness had all been very furious, driving, and perhaps even musically congested. While that’s exciting sometimes, it was definitely time to regain serenity and equilibrium in my own work. I began my initial research, dreaming up ideas, and quickly discovered the paintings of the Hudson River School painters — like Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, and even Winslow Homer — who were known for creating vast and majestic American landscapes. Slowly, the music I was writing began to piece itself together like a slideshow from a family road trip — a musical montage — each theme moving through different scenery from one picturesque lookout point to the next. Above all, I think this piece is a celebration of the restorative power of nature, and of places like Ithaca, where there is certainly no shortage of natural beauty.