Over the past many years, there has been no better writer and raconteur on music than the American composer Virgil Thomson (1896-1989). Thomson was a Harvard man out of Kansas City, Missouri. He made his way to Paris just after World War I to study with Nadia Boulanger. Eventually he made his way to the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, with whom he developed a warm friendship. Until for some reason Miss Stein was peeved enough to send her card saying Miss Stein declines further acquaintance with Mr. Thomson. Undaunted, Thomson persisted, and it is with Gertrude Stein he wrote the two opera Four Saints in Three Acts, and The Mother of Us All. Returning to America in 1940, Thomson became music editor of the New York Herald Tribune. This long deceased New York daily afforded Thomson tremendous influence in musical circles, which he did not hesitate to use to further his own compositions. That said, his writing on all aspects of music, from Lully to La revue negre are peerless for their clarity and often sword slashing insight. The superb Tim Page, who has edited previous volumes of Thomson's prose, and who returned Dawn Powell to the word, has edited a new volume of Virgil Thomson's writing: Virgil Thomson, Music Chronicles 1940-1954. Anyone with a passing interest in music and good writing needs to have this book. There's an enormous amount to learn in these 1,000 pages-and your education will be painless, thorough and entertaining. Here are some examples: "I sat through another Sibelius symphony, listening attentively. The melodic material was everywhere of inferior quality; the harmonic structure was at best unobtrusive its worst corny." "It has long been evident that artistic enterprises which conduct their operations on the models of business must accept the unhappy consequences of a business depression...such groups do best when they conduct themselves and think of themselves as successful money-spending enterprises, not as unsuccessful money making ones." "Sex, you may be pleased to learn, plays no role in musical taste. Men and women at all ages, according to Dr. Nash's survey, appear to like exactly the same works, authors and styles."
Christopher Purdy is Classical 101's early morning host, 7-10 a.m. weekdays. He is host and producer of Front Row Center – Classical 101’s weekly celebration of Opera and more – as well as Music in Mid-Ohio, Concerts at Ohio State, and the Columbus Symphony broadcast series. He is the regular pre-concert speaker for Columbus Symphony performances in the Ohio Theater.