Virgil Thomson by Thomson, Virgil -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Copyright Contents THE STATE OF MUSIC

Contents

A 1961 Preface 1. Our Island Home 2. The Neighbors 3. Survivals of an Earlier Civilization 4. Life among the Natives 5. Life in the Big City 6. How Composers Eat 7. Why Composers Write How 8. Composers’ Politics 9. Intellectual Freedom 10. How to Write a Piece 11. Back to the Womb, James 12. Back to Politics A 1961 Postlude

VIRGIL THOMSON

Acknowledgments A Note on the Illustrations

Illustration 1 Illustration 2 Illustration 3 Illustration 4 Illustration 5 Illustration 6 Illustration 7 Illustration 8 Illustration 9 Illustration 10 Illustration 11 Illustration 12 Illustration 13 Illustration 14 Illustration 15 Illustration 16 Illustration 17 Illustration 18 Illustration 19 Illustration 20 Illustration 21 Illustration 22 Illustration 23 Illustration 24 Illustration 25 Illustration 26 Illustration 27 Illustration 28 Illustration 29 Illustration 30 Illustration 31 Illustration 32 Illustration 33 Illustration 34 Illustration 35 Illustration 36 Illustration 37 Illustration 38 Illustration 39 Illustration 40 Illustration 41 Illustration 42 Illustration 43 Illustration 44 Illustration 45 Illustration 46 Illustration 47 Illustration 48 Illustration 49 Illustration 50 Illustration 51 Illustration 52 Illustration 53 Illustration 54 Illustration 55 Illustration 56 Illustration 57 Illustration 58 Illustration 59 Illustration 60 Illustration 61 Illustration 62 Illustration 63 Illustration 64 Illustration 65 Illustration 66 Illustration 67 Illustration 68 Illustration 69 Illustration 70 Illustration 71 Illustration 72 Illustration 73 Illustration 74 Illustration 75 Illustration 76 Illustration 77 Illustration 78 Illustration 79 Illustration 80 Illustration 81 Illustration 82 Illustration 83 Illustration 84 Illustration 85

Contents

Virgil Thomson 1. Missouri Landscape with Figures 2. A Kansas City Childhood 3. A Musician’s Adolescence 4. My World War I 5. Harvard, Jumping-Off Place for Europe 6. The First Time I Saw Paris 7. An End to Education 8. Antheil, Joyce, and Pound 9. Langlois, Butts, and Stein 10. 17 quai Voltaire 11. Europe after 1925 12. American Interlude 13. An Epoch Ends 14. The New Romanticism 15. A Portrait of Gertrude Stein 16. Gertrude and the Young French Poet 17. Neighborhoods and Portraits 18. Adopted by the Modern-Art Distributors 19. Orchestrations and Contracts 20. Four Saints in Three Cities 21. Communists All Around and High Life Too 22. Show Business for Uncle Sam 23. The Theatrical Thirties 24. Pastoral 25. The Quiet War 26. Mozart, One Musician’s Best Friend 27. The Paper 28. Europe in America 29. All Roads Lead to Paris 30. France in ’45 31. Europe in ’46 32. The Year I Was Fifty 33. Five Years Go By 34. Traipsing and Trouping 35. A Distaste for Music

From AMERICAN MUSIC SINCE 1910

Contents

1. America’s Musical Maturity 2. American Musical Traits 3. The Ives Case 4. Ruggles 5. Varèse 6. Aaron Copland 7. Looking Backward 8. Cage and the Collage of Noises 9. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men A Suggested Reading List

From MUSIC WITH WORDS

Contents

Preface 1. A Formal Introduction to the Subject 2. Word-Groups 3. Occasions for Singing 4. Making Everything Clear 5. Helping the Performers 6. The Longs and Shorts in Singing 7. Instrumental Helps and Hindrances 8. The “Musical Idea” 9. Both Words and Emotions Are Important 10. Opera in the Vernacular 11. The Nature of Opera 12. After All Appendix A Short Reading-List

OTHER WRITINGS

Music and Culture

Music’s Tradition of Constant Change Music in the 1950s Music Now Music Does Not Flow

Music for the Theater

Opera Librettos Music for Much Ado The Rocky Road of American Opera The State of Opera

Opera Reviewed

Blitzstein on Record: From Regina to Juno The Crucible and The Wings of the Dove Stravinsky’s Flood: A Spectacle for Television

Critics and Criticism

On Good Terms with All Muses A Free Critical Spirit B. H. Haggin’s Toscanini Instruments of Criticism The State of Music Criticism

Memories and Milestones

A. Everett “Chick” Austin, Jr. Nadia Boulanger at Seventy-five William Flanagan Elisabeth Lutyens Edwin Denby Lou Harrison at Seventy

Book Reviews

Sincere Appreciation Wanda Landowska How Dead Is Arnold Schönberg? On Being Discovered The Tradition of Sensibility “Craft-Igor” and the Whole Stravinsky The Genius Type Berlioz, Boulez, and Piaf Scenes from Show Biz Untold Tales Elliott Carter Wickedly Wonderful Widow Making Black Music A Good Writer The New Grove Copland on Copland

Chronology Note on the Texts Notes Index Index of Compositions by Virgil Thomson

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