Emerson may refer to:

People[link]

• Márcio Passos de Albuquerque (b. 1978), aka. "Sheikh" Emerson, Brazilian-Qatari footballer (Japan, Flamengo, Fluminense, Corinthians)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Transcendentalist author
• Emerson Ferreira da Rosa (b.1976), aka The Puma, Brazilian international footballer
• Emerson Moisés Costa (born 1972), Brazilian footballer commonly known solely by his first name
• Emerson (surname), a surname (and list of people with that name)
• Emerson (given name), a given name (and list of people with that name)

Places[link]

Communities

• Emerson (electoral district), electoral division in Manitoba, Canada
• Emerson, Georgia
• Emerson, Iowa
• Emerson, Manitoba
• Emerson, Nebraska
• Emerson, New Jersey
• Emerson Township, Michigan
• Emerson Township, Dixon County, Nebraska
• Emerson Township, Harlan County, Nebraska
• Emerson Hill, Staten Island, a neighborhood of New York City
• Emerson, Weldford, New Brunswick, Canada

Institutions

• Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts
• Emerson Hospital, Concord, Massachusetts
• Emerson Preparatory School, Washington, D.C.

Companies[link]

• Emerson Electric Company, a major multinational corporation
• Emerson Flutes
• Emerson Radio
• Emerson Records

Other[link]

• Emerson Arcadia 2001, a videogame console
• Emerson Knives
• Emerson Literary Society, a coed collegiate literary society
• Emerson String Quartet, a chamber music group
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer, a progressive rock group
• Emerson Drive, a Canadian country music group
• Emerson (typeface)

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Emerson"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Born	(1803-05-25)May 25, 1803 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	April 27, 1882(1882-04-27) (aged 78) Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
Era	19th century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Transcendentalism
Main interests	Individualism, Mysticism
Notable ideas	Self-reliance, Over-soul
Influenced by Michel de Montaigne, Henry David Thoreau, Emanuel Swedenborg, Hegel, Plato
Influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Henry David Thoreau, Émile Armand, Emma Goldman, Marcel Proust, Harold Bloom, Ivan Cankar, Robert Musil
Signature

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".^[1]

Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays – Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844 – represent the core of his thinking, and include such well-known essays as Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience. Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period.

Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic; "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul."

While his writing style can be seen as somewhat impenetrable, and was thought so even in his own time, Emerson's essays remain among the linchpins of American thinking, and Emerson's work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that have followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."^[2]

Early life, family, and education[link]

Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 25, 1803,^[3] son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. He was named after his mother's brother Ralph and the father's great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo.^[4] Ralph Waldo was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood; the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley, and Charles.^[5] Three other children—Phebe, John Clarke, and Mary Caroline–died in childhood.^[5]

The young Ralph Waldo Emerson's father died from stomach cancer on May 12, 1811, less than two weeks before Emerson's eighth birthday.^[6] Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of the other women in the family; his aunt Mary Moody Emerson in particular had a profound effect on Emerson.^[7] She lived with the family off and on, and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863.^[8]

Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812 when he was nine.^[9] In October 1817, at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty.^[10] Midway through his junior year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called "Wide World".^[11] He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel in Waltham, Massachusetts.^[12] By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo.^[13] Emerson served as Class Poet; as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18.^[14] He did not stand out as a student and graduated in the exact middle of his class of 59 people.^[15]

In 1826, faced with poor health, Emerson went to seek out warmer climates. He first went to Charleston, South Carolina, but found the weather was still too cold.^[16] He then went further south, to St. Augustine, Florida, where he took long walks on the beach, and began writing poetry. While in St. Augustine, he made the acquaintance of Prince Achille Murat. Murat, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was only two years his senior; they became extremely good friends and enjoyed one another's company. The two engaged in enlightening discussions on religion, society, philosophy, and government, and Emerson considered Murat an important figure in his intellectual education.^[17]

While in St. Augustine, Emerson had his first experience of slavery. At one point, he attended a meeting of the Bible Society while there was a slave auction taking place in the yard outside. He wrote, "One ear therefore heard the glad tidings of great joy, whilst the other was regaled with 'Going, gentlemen, going'!"^[18]

Early career[link]

Engraved drawing, 1878

After Harvard, Emerson assisted his brother William^[19] in a school for young women^[20] established in their mother's house, after he had established his own school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts; when his brother William ^[21] went to Göttingen to study divinity, Emerson took charge of the school. Over the next several years, Emerson made his living as a schoolmaster, then went to Harvard Divinity School. Emerson's brother Edward,^[22] two years younger than he, entered the office of lawyer Daniel Webster, after graduating Harvard first in his class. Edward's physical health began to deteriorate and he soon suffered a mental collapse as well; he was taken to McLean Asylum in June 1828 at age 23. Although he recovered his mental equilibrium, he died in 1834 from apparently longstanding tuberculosis.^[23] Another of Emerson's bright and promising younger brothers, Charles, born in 1808, died in 1836, also of tuberculosis,^[24] making him the third young person in Emerson's innermost circle to die in a period of a few years.

Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire on Christmas Day, 1827, and married her when she was 18.^[25] The couple moved to Boston, with Emerson's mother Ruth moving with them to help take care of Ellen, who was already sick with tuberculosis.^[26] Less than two years later, Ellen died at the age of 20 on February 8, 1831, after uttering her last words: "I have not forgot the peace and joy."^[27] Emerson was heavily affected by her death and visited her grave in Roxbury daily.^[28] In a journal entry dated March 29, 1832, Emerson wrote, "I visited Ellen's tomb & opened the coffin."^[29]

Boston's Second Church invited Emerson to serve as its junior pastor and he was ordained on January 11, 1829.^[30] His initial salary was $1,200 a year, increasing to $1,400 in July,^[31] but with his church role he took on other responsibilities: he was chaplain to the Massachusetts legislature, and a member of the Boston school committee. His church activities kept him busy, though during this period, facing the imminent death of his wife, he began to doubt his own beliefs.

After his wife's death, he began to disagree with the church's methods, writing in his journal in June 1832: "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers."^[32] His disagreements with church officials over the administration of the Communion service and misgivings about public prayer eventually led to his resignation in 1832. As he wrote, "This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That is reason enough why I should abandon it."^[33] As one Emerson scholar has pointed out, "Doffing the decent black of the pastor, he was free to choose the gown of the lecturer and teacher, of the thinker not confined within the limits of an institution or a tradition." ^[34]

Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1857).^[35] He left aboard the brig Jasper on Christmas Day, 1832, sailing first to Malta.^[36] During his European trip, he spent several months in Italy, visiting Rome, Florence and Venice, among other cities. When in Rome, he met with John Stuart Mill, who gave him a letter of recommendation to meet Thomas Carlyle. He went to Switzerland, and had to be dragged by fellow passengers to visit Voltaire's home in Ferney, "protesting all the way upon the unworthiness of his memory." ^[37] He then went on to Paris, a "loud modern New York of a place,",^[38] where he visited the Jardin des Plantes. He was greatly moved by the organization of plants according to Jussieu's system of classification, and the way all such objects were related and connected. As Richardson says, "Emerson's moment of insight into the interconnectedness of things in the Jardin des Plantes was a moment of almost visionary intensity that pointed him away from theology and toward science."^[39]

Moving north to England, Emerson met William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle in particular was a strong influence on Emerson; Emerson would later serve as an unofficial literary agent in the United States for Carlyle, and in March 1835, he tried to convince Carlyle to come to America to lecture.^[40] The two would maintain correspondence until Carlyle's death in 1881.^[41]

Daguerreotype of 'Lidian' Jackson Emerson and son Edward Waldo Emerson, 1840

Emerson returned to the United States on October 9, 1833, and lived with his mother in Newton, Massachusetts, until October, 1834, when he moved to Concord, Massachusetts, to live with his step-grandfather Dr. Ezra Ripley at what was later named The Old Manse.^[42] Seeing the budding Lyceum movement, which provided lectures on all sorts of topics, Emerson saw a possible career as a lecturer. On November 5, 1833, he made the first of what would eventually be some 1,500 lectures, discussing The Uses of Natural History in Boston. This was an expanded account of his experience in Paris.^[43] In this lecture, he set out some of his important beliefs and the ideas he would later develop in his first published essay Nature:

Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language, not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book that is written in that tongue.^[44]

On January 24, 1835, Emerson wrote a letter to Lydia Jackson proposing marriage.^[45] Her acceptance reached him by mail on the 28th. In July 1835, he bought a house on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts which he named "Bush"; it is now open to the public as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House.^[46] Emerson quickly became one of the leading citizens in the town. He gave a lecture to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the town of Concord on September 12, 1835.^[47] Two days later, he married Lydia Jackson in her home town of Plymouth, Massachusetts,^[48] and moved to the new home in Concord together with Emerson's mother on September 15.^[49]

Emerson quickly changed his wife's name to Lidian, and would call her Queenie,^[50] and sometimes Asia,^[51] and she called him Mr. Emerson.^[52] Their children were Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson. Ellen was named for his first wife, at Lidian's suggestion.^[53]

Emerson was poor when he was at Harvard,^[54] and later supported his family for much of his life.^[55][56] He inherited a fair amount of money after his first wife's death, though he had to file a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it.^[56] He received $11,600 in May 1834,^[57] and a further $11,674.49 in July 1837.^[58] In 1834, he considered that he had an income of $1,200 a year from the initial payment of the estate,^[55] equivalent to what he had earned as a pastor.

Literary career and Transcendentalism[link]

Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1859

On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature, Emerson met with Henry Hedge, George Putnam and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals.^[59] This was the beginning of the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement. Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836.^[60] On September 1, 1837, women attended a meeting of the Transcendental Club for the first time. Emerson invited Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Hoar and Sarah Ripley for dinner at his home before the meeting to ensure that they would be present for the evening get-together.^[61] Fuller would prove to be an important figure in Transcendentalism.

Emerson anonymously published his first essay, Nature, on September 9, 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar",^[62] then known as "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays (which included the first general publication of "Nature") in 1849.^[63] Friends urged him to publish the talk, and he did so, at his own expense, in an edition of 500 copies, which sold out in a month.^[1] In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe.^[64] James Russell Lowell, who was a student at Harvard at the time, called it "an event without former parallel on our literary annals".^[65] Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address".^[66]

In 1837, Emerson befriended Henry David Thoreau. Though they had likely met as early as 1835, in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on to have a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau.^[67] Emerson's own journal comes to 16 large volumes, in the definitive Harvard University Press edition published between 1960 and 1982. Some scholars consider the journal to be Emerson's key literary work.^[68]

In March 1837, Emerson gave a series of lectures on The Philosophy of History at Boston's Masonic Temple. This was the first time he managed a lecture series on his own, and was the beginning of his serious career as a lecturer.^[69] The profits from this series of lectures were much larger than when he was paid by an organization to talk, and Emerson continued to manage his own lectures often throughout his lifetime. He would eventually give as many as 80 lectures a year, traveling across the northern part of the United States. He traveled as far as St. Louis, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and California.^[70]

On July 15, 1838,^[71] Emerson was invited to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School for the school's graduation address, which came to be known as his "Divinity School Address". Emerson discounted Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God: historical Christianity, he said, had turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo".^[72] His comments outraged the establishment and the general Protestant community. For this, he was denounced as an atheist,^[72] and a poisoner of young men's minds. Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put forward a defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years.^[73]

The Transcendental group began to publish its flagship journal, The Dial, in July 1840.^[74] They planned the journal as early as October 1839, but work did not begin until the first week of 1840.^[75] George Ripley was its managing editor^[76] and Margaret Fuller was its first editor, having been hand-chosen by Emerson after several others had declined the role.^[77] Fuller stayed on for about two years and Emerson took over, utilizing the journal to promote talented young writers including Ellery Channing and Thoreau.^[67]

It was in 1841 that Emerson published Essays, his second book, which included the famous essay, "Self-Reliance".^[78] His aunt called it a "strange medley of atheism and false independence", but it gained favorable reviews in London and Paris. This book, and its popular reception, more than any of Emerson's contributions to date laid the groundwork for his international fame.^[79]

In January 1842 Emerson's first son Waldo died from scarlet fever.^[80] Emerson wrote of his grief in the poem "Threnody" ("For this losing is true dying"),^[81] and the essay "Experience". That same month, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather.

Bronson Alcott announced his plans in November 1842 to find "a farm of a hundred acres in excellent condition with good buildings, a good orchard and grounds".^[82] Charles Lane purchased a 90-acre (360,000 m²) farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, in May 1843 for what would become Fruitlands, a community based on Utopian ideals inspired in part by Transcendentalism.^[83] The farm would run based on a communal effort, using no animals for labor; its participants would eat no meat and use no wool or leather.^[84] Emerson said he felt "sad at heart" for not engaging in the experiment himself.^[85] Even so, he did not feel Fruitlands would be a success. "Their whole doctrine is spiritual", he wrote, "but they always end with saying, Give us much land and money".^[86] Even Alcott admitted he was not prepared for the difficulty in operating Fruitlands. "None of us were prepared to actualize practically the ideal life of which we dreamed. So we fell apart", he wrote.^[87] After its failure, Emerson helped buy a farm for Alcott's family in Concord^[86] which Alcott named "Hillside".^[87]

The Dial ceased publication in April 1844; Horace Greeley reported it as an end to the "most original and thoughtful periodical ever published in this country".^[88] (An unrelated magazine of the same name would be published in several periods through 1929.)

In 1844, Emerson published his second collection of essays, entitled "Essays: Second Series." This collection included "The Poet," "Experience," "Gifts," and an essay entitled "Nature," a different work from the 1836 essay of the same name.

Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and much of the rest of the country. He had begun lecturing in 1833; by the 1850s he was giving as many as 80 per year.^[89] He addressed the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the Gloucester Lyceum, among others. Emerson spoke on a wide variety of subjects and many of his essays grew out of his lectures. He charged between $10 and $50 for each appearance, bringing him as much as $2,000 in a typical winter "season". This was more than his earnings from other sources. In some years, he earned as much as $900 for a series of six lectures, and in another, for a winter series of talks in Boston, he netted $1,600.^[90] He eventually gave some 1,500 lectures in his lifetime. His earnings allowed him to expand his property, buying 11 acres (45,000 m²) of land by Walden Pond and a few more acres in a neighboring pine grove. He wrote that he was "landlord and waterlord of 14 acres, more or less".^[86]

Emerson was introduced to Indian philosophy when reading the works of French philosopher Victor Cousin.^[91] In 1845, Emerson's journals show he was reading the Bhagavad Gita and Henry Thomas Colebrooke's Essays on the Vedas.^[92] Emerson was strongly influenced by the Vedas, and much of his writing has strong shades of nondualism. One of the clearest examples of this can be found in his essay "The Over-soul":

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.^[93]

From 1847 to 1848, he toured England, Scotland, and Ireland.^[94] He also visited Paris between the February Revolution and the bloody June Days. When he arrived, he saw the stumps where trees had been cut down to form barricades in the February riots. On May 21 he stood on the Champ de Mars in the midst of mass celebrations for concord, peace and labor. He wrote in his journal: "At the end of the year we shall take account, & see if the Revolution was worth the trees."^[95]

In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited an edition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850.^[96] Within a week of her death, her New York editor Horace Greeley suggested to Emerson that a biography of Fuller, to be called Margaret and Her Friends, be prepared quickly "before the interest excited by her sad decease has passed away".^[97] Published with the title The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli,^[98] Fuller's words were heavily censored or rewritten.^[99] The three editors were not concerned about accuracy; they believed public interest in Fuller was temporary and that she would not survive as a historical figure.^[100] Even so, for a time, it was the best-selling biography of the decade and went through thirteen editions before the end of the century.^[98]

Walt Whitman published the innovative poetry collection Leaves of Grass in 1855 and sent a copy to Emerson for his opinion. Emerson responded positively, sending a flattering five-page letter as a response.^[101] Emerson's approval helped the first edition of Leaves of Grass stir up significant interest^[102] and convinced Whitman to issue a second edition shortly thereafter.^[103] This edition quoted a phrase from Emerson's letter, printed in gold leaf on the cover: "I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career".^[104] Emerson took offense that this letter was made public^[105] and later became more critical of the work.^[106]

Civil War years[link]

Emerson was staunchly anti-slavery, but he did not appreciate being in the public limelight and was hesitant about lecturing on the subject. He did, however, give a number of lectures during the pre-Civil War years, beginning as early as November, 1837.^[107] A number of his friends and family members were more active abolitionists than he, at first, but from 1844 on, he took a more active role in opposing slavery. He gave a number of speeches and lectures, and notably welcomed John Brown to his home during Brown's visits to Concord.^[108] He voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, but Emerson was disappointed that Lincoln was more concerned about preserving the Union than eliminating slavery outright.^[109] Once the American Civil War broke out, Emerson made it clear that he believed in immediate emancipation of the slaves.^[110]

Around this time, in 1860, Emerson published The Conduct of Life, his final original collection of essays.^[111] In this book, Emerson "grappled with some of the thorniest issues of the moment," and "his experience in the abolition ranks is a telling influence in his conclusions.^[112] In the book's opening essay, Fate, Emerson wrote, "The question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live?"^[113]

Emerson visited Washington, D.C, at the end of January, 1862. He gave a public lecture at the Smithsonian on January 31, 1862, and declared: "The South calls slavery an institution... I call it destitution... Emancipation is the demand of civilization".^[114] The next day, February 1, his friend Charles Sumner took him to meet Lincoln at the White House. Lincoln was familiar with Emerson's work, having previously seen him lecture.^[115] Emerson's misgivings about Lincoln began to soften after this meeting.^[116] In 1865, he spoke at a memorial service held for Lincoln in Concord: "Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain as this has caused, or will have caused, on its announcement."^[115] Emerson also met a number of high-ranking government officials, including Salmon P. Chase, the secretary of the treasury, Edward Bates, the attorney general, Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war, Gideon Welles, the secretary of the navy, and William Seward, the secretary of state.^[117]

On May 6, 1862, Emerson's protégé Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis at the age of 44 and Emerson delivered his eulogy. Emerson would continuously refer to Thoreau as his best friend,^[118] despite a falling out that began in 1849 after Thoreau published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.^[119] Another friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, died two years after Thoreau in 1864. Emerson served as one of the pallbearers as Hawthorne was buried in Concord, as Emerson wrote, "in a pomp of sunshine and verdure".^[120] He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1864.^[121]

Final years and death[link]

Emerson's grave in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord

Starting in 1867, Emerson's health began declining; he wrote much less in his journals.^[122] Beginning as early as the summer of 1871 or in the spring of 1872, Emerson started having memory problems^[123] and suffered from aphasia.^[124] By the end of the decade, he forgot his own name at times and, when anyone asked how he felt, he responded, "Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well".^[125]

Emerson's Concord home caught fire on July 24, 1872; Emerson called for help from neighbors and, giving up on putting out the flames, all attempted to save as many objects as possible.^[126] The fire was put out by Ephraim Bull, Jr., the one-armed son of Ephraim Wales Bull.^[127] Donations were collected by friends to help the Emersons rebuild, including $5,000 gathered by Francis Cabot Lowell, another $10,000 collected by LeBaron Russell Briggs, and a personal donation of $1,000 from George Bancroft.^[128] Support for shelter was offered as well; though the Emersons ended up staying with family at the Old Manse, invitations came from Anne Lynch Botta, James Elliot Cabot, James Thomas Fields and Annie Adams Fields.^[129] The fire marked an end to Emerson's serious lecturing career; from then on, he would lecture only on special occasions and only in front of familiar audiences.^[130]

While the house was being rebuilt, Emerson took a trip to England, continental Europe, and Egypt. He left on October 23, 1872, along with his daughter Ellen^[131] while his wife Lidian spent time at the Old Manse and with friends.^[132] Emerson and his daughter Ellen returned to the United States on the ship Olympus along with friend Charles Eliot Norton on April 15, 1873.^[133] Emerson's return to Concord was celebrated by the town and school was canceled that day.^[124]

In late 1874 Emerson published an anthology of poetry called Parnassus, which included poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Julia Caroline Dorr, Jean Ingelow, Lucy Larcom, Jones Very, as well as Thoreau and several others.^[134] The anthology was originally prepared as early as the fall of 1871 but was delayed when the publishers asked for revisions.^[135]

The problems with his memory had become embarrassing to Emerson and he ceased his public appearances by 1879. As Holmes wrote, "Emerson is afraid to trust himself in society much, on account of the failure of his memory and the great difficulty he finds in getting the words he wants. It is painful to witness his embarrassment at times".^[125] On April 21, 1882, Emerson was diagnosed with pneumonia.^[136] He died on April 27, 1882. Emerson is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts.^[137] He was placed in his coffin wearing a white robe given by American sculptor Daniel Chester French.^[138]

Lifestyle and beliefs[link]

Ralph Waldo Emerson in later years

Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine.^[139] Critics believed that Emerson was removing the central God figure; as Henry Ware, Jr. said, Emerson was in danger of taking away "the Father of the Universe" and leaving "but a company of children in an orphan asylum".^[140] Emerson was partly influenced by German philosophy and Biblical criticism.^[141] His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature.^[142]

Emerson did not become an ardent abolitionist until 1844, though his journals show he was concerned with slavery beginning in his youth, even dreaming about helping to free slaves. In June 1856, shortly after Charles Sumner, a United States Senator, was beaten for his staunch abolitionist views, Emerson lamented that he himself was not as committed to the cause. He wrote, "There are men who as soon as they are born take a bee-line to the axe of the inquisitor... Wonderful the way in which we are saved by this unfailing supply of the moral element".^[143] After Sumner's attack, Emerson began to speak out about slavery. "I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom", he said at a meeting at Concord that summer.^[144] Emerson used slavery as an example of a human injustice, especially in his role as a minister. In early 1838, provoked by the murder of an abolitionist publisher from Alton, Illinois named Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Emerson gave his first public antislavery address. As he said, "It is but the other day that the brave Lovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to live".^[143] John Quincy Adams said the mob-murder of Lovejoy "sent a shock as of any earthquake throughout this continent".^[145] However, Emerson maintained that reform would be achieved through moral agreement rather than by militant action. By August 1, 1844, at a lecture in Concord, he stated more clearly his support for the abolitionist movement. He stated, "We are indebted mainly to this movement, and to the continuers of it, for the popular discussion of every point of practical ethics".^[146]

Emerson may have had erotic thoughts about at least one man.^[147] During his early years at Harvard, he found himself attracted to a young freshman named Martin Gay about whom he wrote sexually charged poetry.^[54][148] He also had a number of crushes on various women throughout his life,^[54] such as Anna Barker^[149] and Caroline Sturgis.^[150]

Legacy[link]

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ Issue of 1940

As a lecturer and orator, Emerson—nicknamed the Concord Sage—became the leading voice of intellectual culture in the United States.^[151] Herman Melville, who had met Emerson in 1849, originally thought he had "a defect in the region of the heart" and a "self-conceit so intensely intellectual that at first one hesitates to call it by its right name", though he later admitted Emerson was "a great man".^[152] Theodore Parker, a minister and Transcendentalist, noted Emerson's ability to influence and inspire others: "the brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter nights, and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that great new start, a beauty and a mystery, which charmed for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspiration, as it led them forward along new paths, and towards new hopes".^[153]

Emerson's work not only influenced his contemporaries, such as Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, but would continue to influence thinkers and writers in the United States and around the world down to the present. Notable thinkers who recognize Emerson's influence include Nietzsche and William James, Emerson's godson. "There is little disagreement that Emerson was the most influential writer of 19th-century America, though these days he is largely the concern of scholars. Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and William James were all positive Emersonians, while Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James were Emersonians in denial — while they set themselves in opposition to the sage, there was no escaping his influence. To T. S. Eliot, Emerson’s essays were an “encumbrance.” Waldo the Sage was eclipsed from 1914 until 1965, when he returned to shine, after surviving in the work of major American poets like Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane."^[154]

In his book The American Religion, Harold Bloom repeatedly refers to Emerson as "The prophet of the American Religion," which in the context of the book refers to indigenously American religions such as Mormonism and Christian Science, which arose largely in Emerson's lifetime, but also to Mainline Protestant churches that Bloom says have become in the United States more gnostic than their European counterparts. In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom compares Emerson to Michel de Montaigne: "The only equivalent reading experience that I know is to reread endlessly in the notebooks and journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American version of Montaigne."^[155] Several of Emerson's poems were included in Bloom's The Best Poems of the English Language, although he wrote that none of the poems are as outstanding as the best of Emerson's essays, which Bloom listed as Self-Reliance, Circles, Experience, and "nearly all of Conduct of Life".

Namesakes[link]

• In May 2006, 168 years after Emerson delivered his "Divinity School Address," Harvard Divinity School announced the establishment of the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Professorship.^[156] Harvard has also named a building, Emerson Hall (1900), after him.^[157]

• Emerson Hill, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Staten Island, is named for his eldest brother, Judge William Emerson, who resided there from 1837 to 1864.^[158]

• The Emerson String Quartet, formed in 1976, took their name from Ralph Waldo Emerson.^[159]

• The Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize is awarded annually to high school students for essays on historical subjects.^[160]

• Author Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1914 – April 16, 1994) was named after Emerson.

Selected works[link]

Representative Men (1850)

Collections

• Essays: First Series (1841)
• Essays: Second Series (1844)
• Poems (1847)
• Nature; Addresses and Lectures (1849)
• Representative Men (1850)
• English Traits (1856)
• The Conduct of Life (1860)
• May Day and Other Poems (1867)
• Society and Solitude (1870)
• Letters and Social Aims (1876)

Individual essays

• "Nature" (1836)
• "Self-Reliance" (Essays: First Series)
• "Compensation" (First Series)
• "The Over-Soul" (First Series)
• "Circles" (First Series)
• "The Poet" (Essays: Second Series)
• "Experience" (Essays: Second Series)
• "Politics" (Second Series)
• "The American Scholar"
• "New England Reformers"

Poems

• "Concord Hymn"
• "The Rhodora"
• "Brahma"

See also[link]

Poetry portal

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers
• Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door, a phrase often attributed to Emerson.
• Transparent eyeball

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Allen, Gay Wilson (1981). Waldo Emerson. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-74866-8. 
• Baker, Carlos (1996). Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-86675-X. 
• Buell, Lawrence (2003). Emerson. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01139-2. 
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1983). Essays and Lectures. New York: Library of America. ISBN 0-940450-15-1. 
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1994). Collected Poems and Translations. New York: Library of America. ISBN 0-940450-28-3. 
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo (2010). Selected Journals: 1820–1842. New York: Library of America. ISBN 1-59853-067-4. 
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo (2010). Selected Journals: 1841–1877. New York: Library of America. ISBN 1-59853-068-2. 
• Gougeon, Len (2010). Virtue's Hero: Emerson, Antislavery, and Reform. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-3469-3. 
• Gura, Philip F (2007). American Transcendentalism: A History. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-8090-3477-2. 
• Kaplan, Justin (1979). Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-22542-1. 
• McAleer, John (1984). Ralph Waldo Emerson: Days of Encounter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-55341-7. 
• Myerson, Joel (2000). A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512094-9. 
• Myerson, Joel, Petrolionus, Sandra Herbert, Walls, Laura Dassaw, eds. (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-533103-6. 
• Packer, Barbara L. (2007). The Transcendentalists. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-2958-1. 
• Porte, Joel & Morris, Saundra, eds. (1999). The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-49946-1. 
• Richardson, Robert D. Jr. (1995). Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08808-5. 
• Rosenwald, Lawrence (1988). Emerson and the Art of the Diary. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505333-8. 
• Sullivan, Wilson (1972). New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company. ISBN 0-02-788680-8. 
• von Frank, Albert J. (1994). An Emerson Chronology. New York: G. K. Hall & Co.. ISBN 0-8161-7266-8. 
• Von Mehren, Joan (1994). Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-015-9. 
• Ward, Julius H. (1887). The Andover Review. Houghton Mifflin. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson in free audio format from LibriVox
• The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson at RWE.org
• Reading Ralph Waldo Emerson, a blog featuring excerpts from Emerson's journals
• Representative Men from American Studies at the University of Virginia.
• The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson transcendentalists.com
• The Enduring Significance of Emerson's Divinity School Address" – by John Haynes Holmes
• "American Individualism and Emerson, Its Champion." – by Charles Churchyard
• The Living Legacy of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Rev. Schulman and R. Richardson
• Tribute to Ralph Waldo Emerson – a hypertext guide, in English and in Italian
• Ralph Waldo Emerson complete Works at the University of Michigan
• Works by or about Ralph Waldo Emerson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Ralph Waldo Emerson" – by Russell Goodman
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Ralph Waldo Emerson" – by Vince Brewton
• Life in the Ralph Waldo Emerson House – slideshow by The New York Times
• A bibliography of books about Emerson
• Another Emerson bibliography
• Emerson & Thoreau at C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
• Booknotes interview with Robert D. Richardson on Emerson: The Mind on Fire, August 13, 1995.

v t e Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson Poetry "Concord Hymn" (1836) "Uriel" (1846) "The Rhodora" (1847) "Brahma" (1856) Essays Nature (1836) The American Scholar (1837) Self-Reliance (1841) Compensation (1841) Over-soul (1841) Circles (1841) The Poet (1844) Experience (1844) Politics (1844) New England Reformers (1844) Essay collections Essays: First Series (1841) Essays: Second Series (1844) Representative Men (1850) The Conduct of Life (1860)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2010)

Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson performing in St. Petersburg, September 2008
Background information
Birth name	Keith Noel Emerson
Born	(1944-11-02) 2 November 1944 (age 67) Todmorden, England
Genres	Progressive rock, Classic rock, Jazz, Jazz Fusion, European Classical music
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Keyboards, piano, Synthesiser, Organ
Years active	1967–present
Labels	Edel Records Victor Entertainment Shout! Factory Varèse Sarabande Rhino Entertainment Manticore Records J!MCO Records Sanctuary Records EMI Marquee Inc. Charly Records Gunslinger Records Cinevox Records
Associated acts	Gary Farr & The T-Bones, The V.I.P.'s, P.P. Arnold, The Nice, Free Creek, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Emerson, Lake & Powell, 3, Keith Emerson Band
Website	Official website

Keith Noel Emerson (born 2 November 1944, Todmorden, West Yorkshire) is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, The V.I.P.'s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice (which evolved from P.P. Arnold's band), he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), one of the early supergroups, in 1970. Following the breakup of ELP, circa 1979, Emerson had modest success with Emerson, Lake & Powell in the 1980s as well as with 3, with the album To the Power of Three. ELP reunited during the early 1990s, releasing the album Black Moon. Emerson also reunited The Nice in 2002 for a tour. His latest album, Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla, was released in 2008.

Along with contemporaries Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Tony Banks of Genesis, and Rick Wakeman of Yes, Emerson is widely regarded as one of the top keyboard players of the progressive rock era.^[1][2][3][4] Allmusic refers to Emerson as "perhaps the greatest, most technically accomplished keyboardist in rock history".^[5]

Biography[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007)

Emerson performing in concert with ELP in 1977

Emerson grew up in the seaside resort of Worthing, West Sussex, England. As a child, he learned western classical music, from which he derived a lot of inspiration to create his own style, combining classical music, jazz, and rock themes. Emerson became intrigued with the Hammond organ after hearing jazz organist Jack McDuff perform "Rock Candy" and it subsequently became his instrument of choice for performing in the late 1960s. This blending of elements is illustrated in his participation in the 1969 Music From Free Creek "supersession" project, where Emerson performs with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Chuck Rainey covering, among other tracks, the Eddie Harris instrumental "Freedom Jazz Dance".

Emerson acquired his first Hammond organ when he was 15 or 16, an L-100, on "hire purchase," also known as rent-to-own.^[6]

The flamboyance that Emerson came to be known for began by chance when a fight broke out during a V.I.P.s performance in France. The band told him to keep playing so he made some explosion and machine gun sounds with his Hammond organ, which stopped the fight; everyone looked on with amazement. The other band members told him to do it at the next concert, which he did with success.^[7]

Emerson first heard the Moog when a record shop owner played Switched-On Bach for him. Emerson said: "My God that's incredible, what is that played on?" The owner then showed him the album cover. So I said, "What is that?" And he said, "That's the Moog synthesizer." My first impression was that it looked a bit like electronic skiffle."^[7]

Without one of his own, Emerson borrowed Mike Vickers' Moog for an upcoming Nice concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London with the Royal Philharmonic. Mike helped patch the Moog and the concert was a great success. Emerson's performance of Also sprach Zarathustra from the recently released 2001: A Space Odyssey was a show stopper. Emerson: "I thought this was great. I've got to have one of these."^[7]

With ELP's record deal with Atlantic came funds to buy the Moog. Keith: "It cost a lot of money and it arrived and I excitedly got it out of the box stuck it on the table and thought, 'Wow That's Great! a Moog synthesizer [pause] How do you switch it on?...There were all these leads and stuff, there was no instruction manual." Mike Vickers came through by patching it to produce six sounds and those six sounds became the foundation of ELP's sound.^[7]

In 1969, Emerson incorporated the Moog modular synthesizer into his battery of keyboards. While other artists such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had used the Moog in studio recordings, Emerson was the first artist to tour with one. Emerson's use of the Moog was so important to the development of new models that he was given prototypes, such as the Constellation he took on one tour^[7] and the Apollo, which had its debut on the opening track of Brain Salad Surgery, "Jerusalem."

The Moog was a temperamental device; the oscillators went out of tune with temperature change. Emerson: "I had my faithful roady Rocky tune the instrument to A 440 just prior to the audience coming in, but once the audience came into the auditorium and the temperature rose up then everything went out of tune."^[7]

Emerson with the Moog.

His willingness to experiment with the Moog led to unexpected results, such as the time he stumbled into the signature sound for Hoedown, one of ELP's most popular tunes. Emerson: "We'd started working on that arrangement and then I hit, I don't know what, I switched a blue button and I put a patch cord in there, but anyway 'whoooeee.'"^[7]

The so-called "Monster Moog," built from numerous modules, weighed in at a whopping 550 pounds, stood 10 feet tall and took 4 roadies to move. Even with its unpredictability, it became an indispensable component of not only ELP's concerts but also Emerson's.^[8]

He is known for his technical skill and for his live antics, including using knives to wedge down specific keys of his Hammond organ during solos, playing the organ upside down while having it lie over him and backwards while standing behind it, and has cited guitarist Jimi Hendrix and English organist Don Shinn as his chief theatrical influences. He also employed a special rig to rotate his piano end-over-end while he was playing it, though this of course is purely for visual effect, as a piano cannot operate as an instrument while upside down.

Emerson has performed several notable rock arrangements of classical compositions, ranging from J. S. Bach via Modest Mussorgsky to 20th century composers such as Béla Bartók, Aaron Copland, Leoš Janáček and Alberto Ginastera. Occasionally Emerson has quoted from classical and jazz works without giving credit, particularly early in his career, from the late 1960s until 1972. The song "Rondo" by The Nice is a 4/4 interpretation of "Blue Rondo à la Turk" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, originally in 9/8 time signature. The piece is introduced by an extensive quote from Bach's Italian Concerto, third movement. In fact, considering the Bach and Emerson's own improvisations, the Brubeck contribution is merely the anchoring theme.

On ELP's eponymous first album, Emerson's classical quotes went largely uncredited. "The Barbarian" is heavily influenced by "Allegro barbaro" by Bartók, and "Knife Edge" was virtually a note-for-note restatement of "Sinfonietta" by Janáček. Note-for-note extracts were taken from pieces by Bartók, Janáček and Bach, mixed in with some original material, and credited completely to Emerson, Lake, Palmer and roadie Richard Fraser. By 1971, with the releases Pictures at an Exhibition and Trilogy, Emerson began to fully credit classical composers, Modest Mussorgsky for the piano piece which inspired the first album, and Aaron Copland for "Hoedown" on the second. Emerson was adamant that he did not use Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition in developing his own version.

Emerson, photographed in the mid-1980s.

Emerson provided music for a number of films since 1980, including Dario Argento's Inferno and World of Horror, the 1981 thriller Nighthawks and, more recently, Godzilla: Final Wars. He was also the composer for the short-lived 1994 animated television series Iron Man.

In 1990 Emerson toured with The Best, a short-lived supergroup which also included John Entwistle, Joe Walsh, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and Simon Phillips.

In 2002 Emerson re-formed and toured with The Nice, though performing a longer set of ELP music using a backing band including guitarist/vocalist Dave Kilminster.

In 2004, Emerson published his autobiography entitled Pictures of an Exhibitionist, which dealt with his entire career, particularly focusing on his early days with The Nice, and his nearly career-ending nerve-graft surgery in 1993. Emerson was the headliner of both the first and third Moogfest, a festival held in honour of Robert Moog at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City in 2004 and 2006 respectively.^[9][10]

Emerson opened the Led Zeppelin reunion/Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert at the O2 Arena in London on 10 December 2007, along with Chris Squire and Alan White (Yes) and Simon Kirke (Bad Company/Free). The supergroup played the new arrangement of "Fanfare for the Common Man".

The album Keith Emerson Band Featuring Marc Bonilla was released in August 2008. He toured with his own band in Russia, the Baltic States and Japan between August and October 2008. The tour band members were Marc Bonilla, Travis Davis and Tony Pia. On 30 June 2009, Emerson appeared as a guest during Spinal Tap's 'One Night Only World Tour' at Wembley Arena, during the songs "Short And Sweet" and "Heavy Duty".

In March 2010, Emerson received a Frankfurt Music Prize from the city of Frankfurt. In the same month, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra made a premier performance of "Tarkus" arranged by a renowned Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu.

Keith Emerson & Monster Moog synthesizer, May 2010

Emerson toured with Greg Lake in the US and Canada during spring of 2010, doing a series of "An Intimate Evening with Emerson and Lake" duo shows in which they performed newly arranged versions of the music of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Nice, and King Crimson as well as Emerson's new original composition.

On 25 July 2010, a one-off Emerson, Lake & Palmer reunion concert closed the High Voltage Festival as the main act in Victoria Park, East London to commemorate the band's 40th anniversary.

In September 2010, Emerson released a message stating "During a routine medical examination, a colonoscopy revealed a rather dangerous polyp in my lower colon. It is of the conclusion of the doctors here in London that I must undergo surgery immediately. Unfortunately, the timing of this urgent surgery does not allow me to start touring in early October because of the required period of hospitalization and recuperation. I must remain optimistic that all will turn out well".

In September 2011, Emerson began working with the renowned conductor Terje Mikkelsen, along with the Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla and The Munich Radio Orchestra on new orchestral renditions of ELP classics and their new compositions. In recent years, several notable classic music composers, conductors and musicians have been performing various orchestral versions of Emerson’s compositions, such as “Tarkus” and “Piano Concerto No.1”, around the world. As of 2011, the documentary film about Emerson is in production. He occasionally sits in with jazz orchestras performing new arrangements of ELP pieces as well as standard jazz pieces.

Instrumentation and playing style[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (February 2011)

On stage Emerson started out on Hammond organ, with a grand piano toward the back of the stage. By the end of his time with The Nice, the standard arrangement was two Hammond organs, a C-3 (only cosmetically different than a B-3) and an L-100, placed facing each other with the C-3 to the left from the audience point of view. The L-100 took plenty of abuse during the stage act and was usually reinforced, to the point where it weighed so much that, on at least one occasion, Emerson became trapped beneath it and had to be rescued by a roadie. At any given time Emerson is said to have owned several L-100 models, in various stages of repair, to support his act. The C-3, in contrast, seems to have lasted for years.

Although the Hammond L-100 with its shorter manuals is considered a "poor man's" Hammond, Emerson not only played much of the early Nice music on his L-100, but also made good use of some of its unique features which his bigger Hammond C-3 does not provide. The L-100 has a self-starting motor, which - if turned off and on in short intervals - renders the whole organ into a wailing howl while the note generator, which is tied to a synchronous motor, tries to recover to pitch. The L-100 also features a spring-loaded reverb tank, which produces bomb-like noises if shaken. Both effects can be heard in abundance on "Rondo 69". On "Ars Longa Vita Brevis" Emerson even uses the reverb tank as a musical instrument, tapping the internal spring against the tank bottom in an effort to create a chromatic scale of "boings".

With ELP, Emerson added the Moog synthesiser behind the C-3 with the keyboard and ribbon controller stacked on the top of the organ. The ribbon controller allowed Emerson to vary pitch, volume or timbre of the output from the Moog by moving his finger up and down the length of a touch-sensitive strip. It also could be used as a phallic symbol, which quickly became a feature of the act. When the Minimoog entered the act it was placed where needed, such as on top of the grand piano. The same location was also used for an electric Clavinet keyboard, used almost exclusively for the encore piece "Nut Rocker".

During the Brain Salad Surgery tour of 1974 (one show of which was documented on the 3-LP set, Welcome Back My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends), Emerson's keyboard setup included the Hammond C-3 organ, run through multiple Leslie speakers driven by HiWatt guitar amplifiers, the Moog 3C modular synthesiser (modified by addition of various modules and an oscilloscope) with ribbon controller, a Steinway concert grand piano with a Moog Minimoog synthesiser on top of it (used for the steel drum part on Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression), an upright acoustic-electric piano that was used for honky-tonk piano sounds, a Hohner Clavinet and another Moog Minimoog synthesiser. Emerson also used a prototype polyphonic synthesiser produced by Moog, which was the test bed for the Moog Polymoog polyphonic synthesiser. The original synthesiser setup as envisioned by Moog was called the Constellation, and consisted of three instruments - the polyphonic synthesiser, called the Apollo, a monophonic lead synthesizer called the Lyra, and a bass-pedal synthesiser, called the Taurus. Moog eventually produced the Moog Taurus bass pedal synthesiser as a separate instrument, as well as the Polymoog Synthesiser and Polymoog Keyboard. The Apollo polyphonic synthesiser is currently at a keyboard museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Emerson still owns the Lyra synthesiser.

Occasionally Emerson used a pipe organ, when available. In particular, at the Newcastle City Hall he used the Harrison & Harrison pipe organ for the introductory section of Pictures at an Exhibition. The organ is located at the rear above the stage, at the top of a series of steps where choirs can stand. The end of the introductory passage is followed by a drum roll, covering the time while Emerson descended the steps. While all went well for the recording used to produce the album, the debut tour performance at the same venue ground to a halt as the power failed, just as Emerson arrived at the Hammond organ to open the next part of the piece. After a lengthy delay the performance continued with only the Hammond L-100 functioning.

Emerson also used the organ at the Royal Festival Hall for "The Three Fates" from the eponymous debut album by the group. He also used another pipe organ for "The Only Way (Hymn)" from Tarkus. It is not known if he used it in a live context outside of the aforementioned Pictures.

Amplifiers and speakers behind Emerson became more elaborate, including a Leslie unit. There was also a board attached to the front of the stack, intended as a target for his knife throwing. He was given his trademark knife, an authentic Nazi dagger, by Lemmy, who was a roadie for The Nice in his earlier days.^[11] During the Brain Salad Surgery tour, at the end of the show, a sequencer in the Moog Modular synthesiser was set running at an increasing rate, with the Moog Synthesiser pivoting to face the audience while a large pair of silver bat wings was deployed at the back of the synthesiser.

As the technology of electronic keyboard instruments became more sophisticated, Emerson was quick to adopt new instruments, such as the Yamaha GX1 polyphonic synthesiser, one of which can be seen on the video promoting "Fanfare for the Common Man". Emerson was reported to have spent $50,000 to buy the Yamaha GX-1 synthesiser at the time of the Works Volume 1 album. Emerson later bought a 2nd GX-1 from John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, to use to repair his GX-1, which was damaged by a tractor crash into Emerson's home studio. At the time that Emerson left England in the early 1990s to move to Santa Monica, California, he sold the majority of his keyboard equipment, though not the modular Moog. The original Yamaha GX-1 was bought by Hans Zimmer of movie soundtrack fame, while the John Paul Jones GX-1 was bought by a collector in Italy.

In 1978, Emerson became the official endorser of the world's first fully polyphonic synthesisers, the Korg PS-3300 and PS-3100. He started recording with them around this time too and the Korg PS-3300 was heavily used on the ELP album Love Beach. He carried on using it into the 1980s, the instrument dominating the 1981 film soundtrack for Nighthawks which starred Sylvester Stallone.

On the grand piano, Emerson refused to limit his technique. He would sometimes reach into the interior and hit, pluck or strum the strings with his hand. The introduction to "Take a Pebble" included chords and arpeggios played by pressing down on keys, to raise the dampers from the strings, and playing the strings inside the piano as one might play the autoharp. In the live performance of "Hang On to A Dream" with the Nice, recorded for the post-breakup album Elegy, he performed a cadenza of sorts hitting the piano strings with a small hammer, followed by a lengthy wind-down, returning to the song in which he alternated keyboard arpeggios with blows directly on the bass strings. The standard finale to the song has him reaching into the piano with fingers spread on both hands to pluck the final chord, presumably depressing the sustain pedal at the same time to lift all the string dampers. This can be clearly seen on a performance filmed for the television programme, Beat Club.

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

• Inferno - soundtrack (1980)
• Nighthawks - soundtrack (1981)
• Honky (1982)
• Best Revenge - soundtrack (1985)
• Murder Rock - soundtrack (1986)
• The Emerson Collection (1986)
• Harmageddon/China Free Fall (1987)
• The Christmas Album (1988)
• Changing States (aka Cream of Emerson Soup) (1995)
• Emerson Plays Emerson (2002)
• La Chiesa - soundtrack (2002)
• Godzilla: Final Wars - soundtrack (2004)
• At the Movies (2005)
• Hammer It Out (anthology) (2005)
• Off the Shelf (2006)
• Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla (2008)
• "Moscow" - live album CD & DVD (2010)

As part of a group[link]

For Emerson's work with The Nice, see The Nice Discography. For Emerson's work with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, see Emerson, Lake & Palmer discography. For Emerson's work with Emerson, Lake & Powell, see Emerson, Lake & Powell Discography. For Emerson's work with 3, see 3 Discography.

Emerson also appeared with the short-lived group Aliens of Extraordinary Ability with Stuart Smith, Richie Onori, Marvin Sperling and Robbie Wykoff.^[12]

Partial list of pieces based on other composers' works[link]

Note that lack of credit does not imply plagiarism. It is certain that, where required, royalties were paid to composers or their estates. Permission to use pieces was sometimes denied by the composer's family or estate, as for instance with Gustav Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War. Aaron Copland was said to be somewhat puzzled by Emerson's take on Fanfare For the Common Man, but approved its use. Alberto Ginastera, on the other hand, was thrilled by Emerson's electronic realization of his first piano concerto, the fourth movement of which appeared on their album Brain Salad Surgery under the title "Toccata," and declared that he wished he could have done it in that fashion.

With the Nice[link]

• "America, 2nd Amendment", from West Side Story's "America", by Leonard Bernstein, credited, quoting Antonín Dvořák's symphony No. 9, From the New World, uncredited.
• "Rondo", derived from Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo à la Turk", uncredited, quoting Bach, Italian Concerto third movement, uncredited.
• "Diary of an Empty Day", from Symphonie Espagnole by Édouard Lalo, credited.
• "Azrael Revisited", quoting Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, credited, and Lennie Tristano's Turkish Mambo, uncredited.
• "Ars Longa Vita Brevis" - Bach, the third Brandenburg Concerto, Allegro, credited.
• "Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite" - Sibelius, credited.
• "Pathetique", Symphony No. 6 by Tchaikovsky, credited.
• "Hang on to a Dream", from "How Can We Hang On To A Dream?" by Tim Hardin, credited, quoting (during a live recording) "Summertime", from Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, uncredited.
• "She Belongs to Me", by Bob Dylan, credited, quoting Bach, uncredited, and fragments of the theme from The Magnificent Seven, by Elmer Bernstein, uncredited.
• "Country Pie", by Bob Dylan, credited, lyrics partly set to Bach, the sixth Brandenburg Concerto, credited.

With ELP[link]

• "The Barbarian", based on Allegro barbaro, Sz. 49, BB 63 by Béla Bartók, uncredited on US release of Emerson Lake & Palmer (credited on the British Manticore re-pressing of the original LP, on the back cover of the LP jacket).
• "Knife Edge", based on Sinfonietta by Leoš Janáček, uncredited on US release (credited on the British Manticore re-pressing of the original LP, on the back cover of the LP jacket); middle section based on French Suites by J.S. Bach, uncredited.
• "The Only Way (Hymn)", incorporating (in the song's introduction and bridge) J.S. Bach's Toccata in F and Prelude VI, credited on Tarkus.
• "Are You Ready Eddy?", based on the tune of Bobby Troup's song "The Girl Can't Help It" and including a quote from the Assembly bugle call, both uncredited (on Tarkus).
• Pictures at an Exhibition, by Modest Mussorgsky, credited.
• "Blues Variation" from Pictures at an Exhibition also contains an uncredited quote of the 'head' of Bill Evans' minor blues piece "Interplay", during Keith Emerson's Hammond Organ solo.
• "Nutrocker", adapted by Kim Fowley (credited) from Tchaikovsky's "March of the Wooden Soldiers" (uncredited).
• "Hoedown", from Rodeo by Aaron Copland, credited, quoting "Shortenin' Bread" and "Turkey in the Straw"", both traditional.
• "Abaddon's Bolero", quoting "The Girl I Left Behind", traditional.
• "Jerusalem", by C. Hubert H. Parry, credited.
• "Toccata", from a piano concerto by Alberto Ginastera, endorsed by the composer, credited.
• "Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression", quoting "St. Thomas", a Caribbean melody sometimes attributed to Sonny Rollins, uncredited.
• "Fanfare for the Common Man", by Aaron Copland, credited.
• Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff, quoted in an extended solo in live recordings from Poland.
• With Emerson, Lake & Powell, the main theme to "Touch & Go" is identical to the English folk song "Lovely Joan", better known as the counterpoint tune in Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Greensleeves Not credited.^[13]
• "Romeo & Juliet" from Romeo and Juliet suite by Sergei Prokofiev, credited.
• "Love at First Sight" intro, 12 Etudes Op.10 (a son ami Franz Liszst) - No.1 in C major, allegro, by Frederic Chopin, uncredited.

With Billy Sherwood[link]

• "In The Flesh" (and Steve Porcaro + Vinnie Colaiuta, on Back Against The Wall) (2005)
• "Black Dog" (and Alan White, on Led box The ultimate Led Zeppelin tribute) (2008)

Contemporary usage[link]

The surreal comedy series, Big Train, featured Emerson portrayed by Kevin Eldon, as a Roman slave fighting his enemies with progressive rock.^[14]

See also[link]

• List of Hammond organ players
• List of Moog synthesizer players

References[link]

• Forrester, George, Martyn Hanson and Frank Askew. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Show That Never Ends, A Musical Biography. (2001) Helter Skelter Publishing ISBN 1-900924-17-X.
• Keith Emerson, Pictures of an Exhibitionist. (2004) ISBN 1-84454-053-7

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Keith Emerson

• Official website
• Keith Emerson at Allmusic
• Keith Emerson at the Internet Movie Database
• Official ELP website