Patrick white was burdened with rePutation oF a misanthroPe. was, perhaps, self-inflicted but it allowed many to disregard sensitivity and insights of his writing. it is nevertheless surprising that most critics and readers seem unaware of his deep engagement with music. Certainly, few (if any) literary critics appear to recognize significance of in his output.1 i contend that only was profoundly important to as a human being, but that it fundamentally drove his work: without a recognition of crucial importance of music, it is impossible to understand adequately his aesthetic aspiration.In her obituary of White, Australian critic dorothy Green provided a clue to importance that had for White, person and writer. said, White and Lascaris moved to sydney to be closer to friends, to gossip ('the life-blood of a novelist'), to concert halls and theatres (Green 4). Many know of his support for young painters and, even vaguely, his gift of about two hundred and fifty artworks to Art Gallery of nsW; few know of his support for music. Australian composer, nigel Butterley, told me of one such example.2 He had informed White, an old friend, that he was setting some poetic and prose texts Walt Whitman. Why have you chosen that old wind-bag? asked and then relented to say that he'd come to concert to hear what Butterley could manage with Whitman.The piece (Sometimes with One I Love, for speaker, baritone, soprano, and instrumental ensemble) was to be performed at sydney Conservatorium in 1976 with student players, but an unexpected change in rehearsal schedule of Conservatorium orchestra rendered them all unavailable. conductor, newly arrived stockhausen protege, Richard toop, investigated cost of professional players, but price (which Butterley recalls as several thousand dollars) was well beyond available resources.3 composer rang to apologize for cancellation of concert and explain reason. asked price and said, if it doesn't cost more than that, i'll pay for it. He did as he promised.There is an abundance of musical imagery in White's work. in early ball scene in Riders in Chariot, dancers leaned back inside slippery funnels of music (Riders 31). in Jardin exotique section of The Aunt's Story, Lieselotte describes Wetherby as by nature, hero of an operetta (The Aunt's Story 174) and tells theodora that [t]he country where we lived was a country of myths and tapestries and music (174-5). earlier we read, [w]atching Father carve mutton, it was like somebody with music, someone with a cello in his (38) and recognize that is more than a thing but something almost animate with which unlike her sensitive mother, seems incapable of having any sort of relationship, being more disposed to go out shooting with her father:No, no, theodora, crackled Mother. not that way. Where is your feeling? said. this horrible up and down. Can't you feel it f low? Here, give it to me. As it were a thing. But Mother sat down. played as it should have been played. took possession of piano, possessed Chopin, they were hers while wanted them, until was ready to put them down. only, watching hands of Mother, which always did what they wanted to, theodora was moved. (27)By contrast, their mother believed that theodora's sister, was the musical one. wrote ambiguously, Fanny could play a piece, and it was a whole bright tight bunch of artificial flowers surrounded a paper frill; after played her piece, she jumped up, and laughed, and was content (28).In The Vivisector, it is beating his chest while broke around him; and the souped-up Brahms surged in browned, more turgid waves (Vivisector 518). His musical imagery is always of high seriousness, sometimes being wittily ironic, as when old women get together in restaurant, near close of Riders in Chariot:All women in room could have been visited same thought: that men went first, that intolerable but necessary virtuosi died of their virtuosity, whereas instruments they had played upon, and left, continued from habit to twang and murmur. …