To address the matter of Virgil Thomson first, it appears that there’s no standard interpretation of the man, and most people were either very fond of him or had little-to-no reason to enjoy his presence.\u00a0 According to some sources, he was rooted in “vindictiveness, pettiness and personal insecurity with harrowing vividness” (Croan).\u00a0 Others, on the contrary, had more positive things to say about him (or, rather, eschewed the negative in favor of the more positive), saying things like he “debunked “the masterpiece syndrome,” “the music appreciation racket” and, in his very first review for the New York Herald Tribune in 1940, announced that the New York Philharmonic was no longer a part of the city’s “intellectual life,” (Page).<\/p>\n
These are just two varying accounts from people who have either known him personally (Croan) or at least were familiar with and informed of his work (Page).\u00a0 Relating Thomson to the notion of Frenchness, it’s been stated multiple times that he was inspired by Erik Satie’s minimalistic lens, as well as was a large proponent of simplifying music (as opposed to making it more complicated\/Wagnerian), deriving inspiration from more classical forms while still giving them something new, and was – above all else – fairly modern in his approach to music-making.<\/p>\n
Depending on who you ask, many of these aspects could constitute a French character.\u00a0 Besides, if Stravinsky is championed as a champion of the music in France in the 1920’s, why can’t Thomson be considered as well by proxy?\u00a0 Having said this, we already know, however, that Cocteau disagrees with this notion because he believes in a certain racial aspect of French identity.\u00a0 On top of this, Thomson – according to various reports – was somewhat of a prickly man.\u00a0 The truth could be that he was a vindictive man; otherwise, it could purely be a cultural difference, given that he grew up in rural Missouri and suddenly moved to cosmopolitan Paris to study counterpoint and other musical techniques.\u00a0 Regardless, I could easily see many different critics finding contention with Thomson’s character as an American taking French ideals, and his abrupt, straightforward nature further stirring the pot.<\/p>\n
Croan, Robert. \u201c’Virgil Thomson: Composer On The Aisle’ by Anthony Tommasini.\u201d ‘Virgil Thomson: Composer On The Aisle’ by Anthony Tommasini<\/i>, 5 Oct. 1997, old.post-gazette.com\/books\/reviews\/19971005review9.asp.<\/p>\n
Page, Tim. \u201cVIRGIL THOMSON: THE COMPOSER IN REVIEW.\u201d The Washington Post<\/i>, 7 Apr. 1996, www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/lifestyle\/style\/1996\/04\/07\/virgil-thomson-the-composer-in-review\/b3eee2eb-b423-41c1-96ac-f050346ef83f\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To address the matter of Virgil Thomson first, it appears that there’s no standard interpretation of the man, and most people were either very fond of him or had little-to-no reason to enjoy his presence.\u00a0 According to some sources, he was rooted in “vindictiveness, pettiness and personal insecurity with harrowing vividness” (Croan).\u00a0 Others, on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3595,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}