Virgil Thomson (1896–1989)

I came to Virgil Thomson through LOA's collected works series, and so: as critic rather than composer. LOA's description put me in mind of Mencken's place in journalism, appealing enough to acquire without knowing Thomson's music nor his reputation as composer. Contra Eliot's admonition that the critical function's chief use is to improve the critic's own creative work, I suspect I will find Thomson's music primarily instructive as an insight into his commentary on music generally. Still, it's promising that Thomson allegedly influenced the "American sound" in the classical tradition, as well as that his opera paired him with Gertrude Stein and African American musical tradition, not to mention his role in film soundtracks.

A brief review of his biography also suggests a strong personal vein to his comments and criticism, some of which he owned up to (jealousy of Copland's greater accolades as a composer, for instance). Liner notes to my CD of Gershwin's Blue Monday suggest he was conservative in his appreciation of Gershwin's (and perhaps: other "non-traditional" purveyors) take on classical forms. This actually seems the opposite of what other sources say about Thomson's legacy generally, suggesting he rubbed people the wrong way and had statements taken out of context -- and/or perhaps, that Thomson's baser motivations could colour his criticism at times.

THE STATE OF MUSIC | read 2021-01

The reception (by contemporaries as well as today) seems to paint TSOM as extreme in its "economic" critique of music. I suspect this is overblown for various reasons. Clearly anything "socialist" or "communist" at the time was highly partisan in American culture, and can be expected to distort its reception or understanding. Perceptions are hardly less dogmatic today. Also, my reading suggests the argument is both unorthodox and subtle, and I suspect Thomson's reduction to "his views on music are radical in their insistence on reducing the rarefied aesthetics of music to market activity" (Wikipedia 2021-05-16) is simply laziness if not itself essentially dogmatic.

Thomson postulates in the revised edition's Preface that art (which I take to mean, "art in Western societies as publicly acknowledged") had not changed much between 1939 (TSOM originally written) and 1962 (revised), but what had changed were social and economic structures. In the first chapter, he explains the approach taken here will be to show how things appear to a musician when composing and performing music, with some insight into what is emphasized in music by music consumers, as well as by the "non-musical". Clearly this is a narrow if fruitful perspective, and at no point in the text does Thomson claim it is the only or even the principal means for understanding music. And then, before addressing music specifically, he discusses first painting & poetry via a "psychological profile" of the ideal type for painters, or poets. Many readers appear to have missed that. In taking up a farcical framework in the opening chapters, then, Thomson already sets himself up for misunderstanding and distortion by anyone unwilling to accept his project for what it is. Thomson is looking for insights into music from examining its form rather than its content, and does so deliberately, but it is quite clear he is not only capable of understanding, but also takes seriously the content of compositions. If nothing else, his own compositions are evidence of this.

Thomson notes also (Chapter 7) that "style" has at least 4 different meanings when applied to music, and he limits himself here to just one: a technical or syntactical usage, the "methods of achieving coherence" in a composition. A composer's chief source of income does influence the style employed, and Thomson is interested in this influence. Questions of "subject matter" of the piece are separate, though also influenced by economic factors, which again the typical reader of TSOM appears to have missed. Thomson's closing comments are notable: he states that music as a liberal art should be led not by its makers (the musicians employed to perform it) nor its distributors (publishers or recording companies), rather by its designers: the composers or writers of music, the creative personalities behind it.

There is a strong element of the gadfly about TSOM, I presume in many respects Thomson was pleased with the ruckus it raised. TSOM was his first published book, leading to the offer to be the Herald Tribune's chief music critic. Curious to see whether late-period books written after this gig are equally provocative; it seems clear the articles themselves (collected in his middle-period books) lived up to the reputation established in TSOM.… (más)