General Notes on Jefferson and Music

Thomas Jefferson once referred to music as a “delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day.” This is high praise from a man who took an interest in nearly every subject of human inquiry. It is also striking that a man who usually spent his hours of respite away from government by inventing something, perfecting something else, solving engineering or botanical problems, writing letters and rewriting the course of political history—that a man pulled in so many directions should make time for music is telling in itself. We will see that Jefferson’s attachment to music was far from merely academic or pedagogical.
Jefferson was known in his day as a better-than-average violinist, and he performed publicly on several occasions. His interests in string music ranged from local fiddle tunes to the latest Italian imports. Already as a young man, he had begun building a library of sheet music—nearly all of which was destroyed when Shadwell burned in 1770. While studying at the College of William & Mary he took formal instruction from a European émigré, who gave Jefferson an abiding love for the Baroque style of Corelli and Vivaldi. At the same time he purchased a “kit”, a small violin often used by local dancing masters. Jefferson, in his typical way, designed a small saddle pouch so that his kit could go wherever he did. Somehow he found time to tinker with musical inventions and “look under the hood”, as it were, at the latest developments in pianos, organs, and other instruments.
Music formed important bonds of friendship throughout Jefferson’s life. Just before leaving for college in 1760, Thomas spent two wonderful weeks literally “fiddling around” with Patrick Henry, who shared Jefferson’s fondness for the hill tunes of central Virginia. And even in the aftermath of battle, music brought Jefferson into close contact with pardoned British and German officers who remained lifelong friends. One of those men, Baron von Geismar, gave Jefferson massive amounts of sheet music in appreciation for the latter’s help getting him passage back to Germany. Jefferson’s wife Martha was also a talented musician (she favored guitar and keyboard), and it is very likely that music played a central role in their courtship.
Once his playing days were behind him, Jefferson focused his energies on the musical education of his daughters and, eventually, granddaughters. The large music library he bequeathed to them, further enlarged by their own purchases, now resides on the campus in Charlottesville and at the Library of Congress. Its contents are diverse and eclectic and almost entirely secular. Among his favorites are works by Handel, Pleyel, Corelli, and Johann Christian Bach. There are boxes of popular songs and violin arrangements of operatic numbers; string quartets and sonatas by the classical masters (such as Haydn, Mozart, and Clementi); and countless instructional methods, primers, exercise books, and texts on music theory. Judging by the surviving catalogue of his holdings, Jefferson’s single favorite composer was the now-forgotten Carlo Antonio Campioni (1720-88). His catalog of Campioni’s works still serves as the primary research material for today’s music historians.
Thomas Jefferson did not discuss music very often in his letters, and as such it is hard to determine precisely how he felt about the significance of music in relation to topics more copiously described, such as gardening, religion, politics, and education in general. But the collections of sheet music, along with numerous instruments in the family’s possession, testify to music’s central role in his life. Moreover, Jefferson bound together much of his music in expensive leather volumes, allowing Mozart, Bach and Campioni to hold places of honor beside Tacitus and Plutarch on Monticello’s hallowed shelves.

(c) Jason Stell