Virgil Thomson

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(b Kansas City, mo, 25 Nov 1896; d New York, 30 Sept 1989). American composer. He was educated at Harvard (1919-23), though spent a year (1921-2) in Paris, where he had lessons with Boulanger and met Cocteau, Satie and Les Six; from 1925 to 1940 he was again in Paris. Stravinsky became an important influence. Also crucial was his meeting Gertrude Stein (1926), with whom he collaborated on two operas, Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) and The Mother of us all (1947). In 1940 he returned to New York and became critic of the Herald Tribune for 14 years, his lively wit, keen ear and elegant writing establishing him as one of the sharpest critics in the USA. Later works include a third opera, Lord Byron (1972), and much else in many genres especially song. He produced a highly original body of diverse music rooted in American speech rhythms and hymnbook harmony, controlled by exquisite sensibilities. The greatest influence on him was Satie's music.

works:
Operas

• Four Saints in Three Acts (1934)
• The Mother of us all (1947)
• Lord Byron (1972)

Ballets

• Filling Station (1938)
• Parson Weems and the Cherry Tree (1975)

Film scores

• The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936)
• The River (1937)
• Louisiana Story (1948)

Orchestral music

• Sym. on a Hymn Tune (1928)
• Sym. no.2 (1931)
• Sym. no.3 (1972)
• Vc Conc. (1950)

Choral music

• Missa pro defunctis (1960)

Solo vocal music

• Five Songs from William Blake (1951)

Chamber music

• Sonata da chiesa (1926)
• Vn Sonata (1930)
• 2 str qts (1931, 1932)

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American composer, critic, and conductor Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) combined literary and musical erudition with simplicity, wit, and skill.

Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City, MO, on Nov. 25, 1896. He studied music theory, piano, and organ, and at the age of 12 he officiated as organist of the local Baptist church. His youthful acquaintance with American folk songs and Baptist hymns later gave him important material in his compositions. After serving in the Army during World War I, Thomson studied at Harvard University. A fellowship enabled him to study in Paris for a year with the distinguished pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Returning to the United States, he received a bachelor of arts degree from Harvard in 1923.

Thomson lived in Paris from 1925 until World War II, visiting the United States periodically. In Paris he formed close associations with musicians, painters, and writers, many of whom were depicted in his compositions for piano, chamber ensemble, and orchestra. Among those described in his numerous musical portraits were Gertrude Stein (1928) and Pablo Picasso (1940).

Another important influence on Thomson was that of composer Erik Satie, who advocated a return to simple, unpretentious music. Thomson's first opera was just that. Four Saints in Three Acts, based on Gertrude Stein's free-association prose, received its premiere in Hartford, CT in 1934. An all-black cast dressed in cellophane costumes sang a virtually unintelligible libretto, and Thomson's music, derived from church hymns and folk sources, utilized only the most rudimentary harmonies. Following the marked success of his first opera, Thomson composed music for two documentary films, The Plough That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937). The latter work utilizes many American folk melodies, including "Aunt Rhody" and "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."

Thomson's first book, The State of Music (1939), described the place of music in Western society. In 1940 he became a critic with the New York Herald Tribune, a post he occupied with great distinction until his retirement in 1954. During those years his articles were collected and published in The Musical Scene (1945), The Art of Judging Music (1948), and Music Right and Left (1951).

Meanwhile, Thomson continued to compose. His second opera, The Mother of Us All, was first performed in 1947. The libretto by Gertrude Stein dealt with the career of Susan B. Anthony. A Solemn Music (1949), written for band and later orchestrated, was composed in a rather conservative atonal idiom. Written in memory of Stein and the painter Christian Bérard, it is one of Thomson's most powerful works. During the 1960s he composed several sacred works, among them Missa pro defunctis for double chorus and orchestra and Pange lingua for organ. In 1967 his book Music Reviewed, 1940-1954 appeared.

In the course of his long career, Thomson wrote many songs and piano music. He received international recognition for his multifaceted achievements: a Pulitzer Prize (1948), several honorary academic degrees, and France's Legion of Honor award.

When Thomson moved back to the U.S. in 1940, he took up residence at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. He would live in that apartment for the rest of his life. It became almost a museum of paintings, pictures, books and furniture from well-known artists who were his friends. Thomson spent much of his time composing music while resting on his walnut bed, where he was often photographed at work. His memoir was published in 1966, simply entitled Virgil Thomson. In 1972, Thomson composed a new opera, entitled Lord Byron, which premiered at the Julliard, yet did not receive the acclaim of his previous two operas.

Each time Thomson reached a milestone birthday, it was marked with a celebration. On his 80th birthday, a special production of his best-known opera, Mother of Us All, was performed. On his 85th birthday, Four Saints in Three Acts was presented at Carnegie Hall. On his 90th birthday, Four Saints was once again performed by the Opera Ensemble of New York. In addition, a radio station in New York broadcast the three operas (Mother of Us All, Four Saints, and Lord Byron), as well as three film scores and numerous chamber compositions and piano sonatas. By this time, Thomson had composed more than 140 Portaits for Piano, which were carefully catalogued and published as Virgil Thomson's Musical Portraits, by Anthony Tommasini.

At the age of 92, Thomson published his last book, Music with Words: A Composer's View (1989). He died in New York City on Sept. 30, 1989. Following his death, his many artifacts were auctioned off for the benefit of the Virgil Thomson Foundation. News reports said the art work went far in excess of its estimated value due to the sentimental nature of the items.

Further Reading

The composer's autobiography, Virgil Thomson (1966), is an invaluable and delightful source. The best study of Thomson's life and music is Kathleen O'Donnell Hoover and John Cage, Virgil Thomson: His Life and Music (1959). Joseph Machlis, American Composers of Our Time (1963), devotes a chapter to Thomson and is recommended for general background.

(1896-1989), composer and critic. As a composer, Thomson utilized a wide variety of musical materials, from Gregorian chant to Baptist hymns and popular tunes that are, in his words, "as ordinary as Dick's hatband," to reflect his own stylistic eclecticism as well as the diversity of the American landscape and its people. As a critic, he consistently recognized the importance of individual creativity for the American composer but also advocated learning from and using, rather than rejecting, European compositional models.

Thomson began his piano and organ study in Kansas City, where he was born. After brief service in the military in World War I, he began formal composition study at Harvard University with Edward Burlingame Hill. He studied organ and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1921-1922 and contributed reviews to the Boston Evening Transcript. After a brief return to the United States, Thomson settled in Paris, where he lived until 1940.

Thomson was introduced to the writings of Gertrude Stein during his Harvard career, and he set the American expatriate writer's "Susie Asado" to music prior to meeting her in 1926. Their collaboration produced the opera Four Saints in Three Acts, which Thomson completed with an orchestral score in 1933. Stein and Thomson worked together again in 1946 to produce The Mother of Us All, an opera about the nineteenth-century women's suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. The historical setting gave Thomson the opportunity to refer in the score to popular songs and dances of the period. In both his instrumental and his stage pieces, Thomson was influenced by the ideas of simplicity, irony, and humor espoused by the French modernist Erik Satie. Thomson also adapted Stein's vocal cadence and use of repetition to good advantage.

Musical references to the United States were put to effective use in his scores for The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937), two films directed by Pare Lorentz for the New Deal's Resettlement Administration. He used similar materials in the score for the ballet Filling Station, commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein for the Ballet Caravan and first performed in 1938. In 1949 Thomson's score for Robert Flaherty's film Louisiana Story won a Pulitzer Prize. Thomson composed his third opera, Lord Byron, working with librettist Jack Larson from 1961 to 1968.

An outspoken critic, Thomson brought wit and irony to his reviews for the New York Herald-Tribune from 1940 to 1954. His writing stood in marked contrast to the jargon-laden, wordy, and technical language of much music criticism of the period. Many of his reviews were collected and published in The State of Music (1939, rev. 1974), The Musical Scene (1945, rev. 1968), Music Right and Left (1951, rev. 1969), and Music Reviewed, 1940-54 (1967). Thomson also wrote essays on music and a textbook, American Music since 1910 (1971). He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1948 and to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959. A Virgil Thomson Reader (1981) won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1981, and in 1983 he was honored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for his long and successful career.

Bibliography:

Kathleen Hoover and John Cage, Virgil Thomson: His Life and Music (1959).

Author:

Barbara L. Tischler

See also Music.

1947	The Mother of Us All. Thomson's opera, with a libretto by Gertrude Stein, is a tribute to women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony and is widely considered the composer's greatest achievement, called by music critic Harold C. Schonberg "one of the few examples of Americana on the lyric stage."

Quotes:

"Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not."

• Born: 1896
• Died: 1989
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '40s
• Major Genres: Culture & Society
• Career Highlights: The Louisiana Story
• First Major Screen Credit: The Louisiana Story (1948)

Biography

Innovative composer Virgil Thomson was among the more important figures in modern American music. In addition to creating symphonies, chamber works, ballets, and operas, Thomson composed many film scores, including that of Louisiana Story (1948), the only piece of music ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. Drawing from a variety of American musical traditions, Thomson's music had a Midwestern flavor that made it the ideal background for such documentaries as The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and the docudrama Journey to America. In addition to composing, Thomson was also an influential music critic who championed avant-garde and other modern forms of music. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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