Signficance of intentional silence

I'm still bothered by the idea that silence as the absence of intentional sound has less significance than intentional sound. It is certainly the case that artists often intentionally incorporate silence between sounds, not just to emphasize the sounds, but for the sake of the silence itself.

I've been wanting to play Bon Iver's "The Wolves" in class for a while to emphasize this point. The silence in this song has special significance. The album which this song is on was recorded (for the most part) in solitude when the artist Justin Vernon retreated to a cabin in Wisconsin. Many of his songs include random sounds of the environment around him, which makes the listener feel like he/she is there with him. In the case of "The Wolves", the silence serves to emphasize his solitude. I'd even argue that the build up in sounds near the end serves to emphasize the silence, not the other way around. This might be why he chose to make it chaotic and unpleasant sounding; he didn't intend the listener to focus on the sounds but instead the silence.

Here's the song. It's not my favorite on the album but is interesting nonetheless: