Virgil Thomson : composer on the aisle / Anthony Tommasini.
| Author/creator | Tommasini, Anthony, 1948- |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | First edition. |
| Publication Info | New York : W. W. Norton & Co., ©1997. |
| Description | xiii, 605 pages, 24 pages of plates : illustrations, music, portraits ; 25 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | The Saint Teresa incident -- This business of being Baptists -- Virgil acquires a mentor -- The pansophist -- A lovely war -- I didn't want to be queer -- Loneliness in pleasure at Harvard -- Virgy Thomson in Paris -- The man who would not fight -- Sherry, George, Gertrude, Alice, and Susie -- Maurice -- Four Saints are never three -- American music agitators -- The flowers of friendship -- Contacts and contracts -- A knockout and a wow -- The commando squad -- Who does what to whom and who gets paid -- The trib -- 329 Pacific street -- What is the question? -- Politics and prizes -- Roger -- It's a soft egg baby! -- A Lord, a genius, a millionaire, and a beauty -- Making young friends -- The absence of the presence -- All my long life. |
| Abstract | In the first full-scale biography of a dominating figure in twentieth-century American music, the author tells the richly textured story of Virgil Thomson's experiences as a composer, influential critic, and gay man. Writing with exclusive, full access to Thomson's papers and from extensive interviews and research, he recounts Thomson's early years in turn-of-the-century Kansas City's strange mixture of antebellum racial divides; his first steps in the arts guided by a troubled older man, himself a closeted homosexual in a time when disclosure could destroy a life; the crystallizing of his musical ambitions as an often-contentious student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris; his pioneering collaboration with Gertrude Stein on Four Saints in Three Acts; his rivalry with fellow composers such as Aaron Copland; how he settled personal scores and advanced his own agenda during his reign on the New York Herald Tribune as America's most important, and best, music critic; his lasting impact on, and sometimes troubled interactions with, younger composers such as Leonard Bernstein, John Cage, Paul Bowles, Ned Rorem, and Philip Glass; and through it all the unending struggle to write, and win an audience for, music that spoke directly and simply to the life of his time. |
| General note | Contains extensive discussion of Thomson's collaboration with Gertrude Stein on their opera Four saints in three acts, with several photos of the original production featuring an all-African American cast. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 573-584) and index. |
| LCCN | 96031695 |
| ISBN | 0393040062 |