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.