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Performance of Virgil Thomson's The Plow That Broke the Plains – Suite, Leopold Stokowski conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 1946
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist,[1][2][3][4] a neoromantic,[5] a neoclassicist,[6] and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment"[7] whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera Lord Byron which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion".[8]
^Dickinson, Peter. 1986. "Stein Satie Cummings Thomson Berners Cage: Toward a Context for the Music of Virgil Thomson". The Musical Quarterly 72, no. 3:394–409.[page needed]
^Lerner, Neil William. 1997. "The Classical Documentary Score in American Films of Persuasion: Contexts and Case Studies, 1936–1945". PhD diss. Duke University.
^Kime, Mary W. 1989. "Modernism and Americana: A Study of The Mother of Us All". Ars Musica Denver 2, no. 1 (Fall): pp. 24–29.
^Watson, Steven. 1998. Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism. New York: Random House, 1998; ISBN 0-679-44139-5 (cloth); reissued in paperback, University of California Berkeley Press, 2000; ISBN 0-520-22353-5 [page needed]
^Thomson, Virgil. 2002. Virgil Thomson: A Reader: Selected Writings, 1924–1984, edited by Richard Kostelanetz. New York: Routledge; ISBN 0-415-93795-7. p. 268
^Glanville-Hicks, Peggy. 1949b. "Virgil Thomson". The Musical Quarterly 35, no. 2 (April): 209–225, citation on p. 210
^Glanville-Hicks, Peggy. 1949a. "Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts". Notes, second series, 6, no. 2 (March): pp. 328–330.
^Griffiths, Paul. 2001. "Thomson, Virgil", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers; New York: Grove's Dictionaries.
VirgilThomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound"...
Lorentz independently while the music score was written by composer VirgilThomson. The film was narrated by the American actor and baritone Thomas Hardie...
study painting in France. He designed the scenario for two operas by VirgilThomson: Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) and The Mother of Us All (1947). In...
ISBN 2-235-01889-0. VirgilThomson: VirgilThomson (New York: Library of America & Penguin Random House, 2016), ISBN 978-1-59853-476-4, p. 135–136; VirgilThomson and...
books on the music of his colleague and mentor, the composer and critic VirgilThomson. A classical music enthusiast since his youth, Tommasini attended both...
Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, and VirgilThomson. The Chelsea received much commentary for the creative culture that...
1931. The entire concert (which also included work by Copland and VirgilThomson) was panned by New York critics. (Bowles's first-known composition was...
as Mistress Ford in Verdi's Falstaff. Having heard the performance, VirgilThomson engaged her in Four Saints in Three Acts, prior to embarking on her...
music from The River, a documentary film score by the concert composer VirgilThomson, by featuring an adaptation of the hymn "How Firm a Foundation". Although...
Mother of Us All is a two-act opera composed by VirgilThomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Thomson and Stein met in 1945 to begin the writing process...
about the band ever written." Sheffield won the ASCAP Foundation's VirgilThomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism for Dreaming the Beatles in 2017...
and And Be My Love (1934). Composer VirgilThomson recruited him to direct Four Saints in Three Acts (1934), Thomson's collaboration with Gertrude Stein...
productions of groundbreaking works, directing her choir and working with VirgilThomson and Gertrude Stein on Four Saints in Three Acts (1933), and serving...
Academy Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story in 1948. In 1949, VirgilThomson won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his score to the film (which is...
Harvey and Gertrude Lawrence, and the African-American cast of the VirgilThomson–Gertrude Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts (1934). In 1934, Miller...
Duran: Temistocle James Thomson, Scottish poet VirgilThomson: Lord Byron VirgilThomson, American composer and critic VirgilThomson: The Mother of Us All...
Toscanini concert, she spotted the critic VirgilThomson dozing during the performance. Knowing that Thomson frequently gave her father negative reviews...
Ormandy 1983 Katherine Dunham Elia Kazan Frank Sinatra James Stewart VirgilThomson 1984 Lena Horne Danny Kaye Gian Carlo Menotti Arthur Miller Isaac Stern...
French release), with music composed by Marc Blitzstein and arranged by VirgilThomson. The film opens in the village of Fuentidueña de Tajo (called "Fuentedueña"...
Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera composed in 1928 by VirgilThomson, setting a libretto written in 1927 by Gertrude Stein. It contains about 20 saints...
Charles Ives, Symphony No. 3 1948: Walter Piston, Symphony No. 3 1949: VirgilThomson, Louisiana Story, film score 1950: Gian Carlo Menotti, The Consul, opera...
Igor Markevitch, Julia Perry, Astor Piazzolla, Laurence Rosenthal, VirgilThomson, and George Walker. Boulanger taught in the U.S. and England, working...
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Performance of Virgil Thomson's The Plow That Broke the Plains – Suite, Leopold Stokowski conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 1946