fourth act. The saints, now in heaven, recall their earthly lives. The Compère sings ‘Last Act’, and the saints reply, ‘Which is a fact’. Personalities | Virgil Thomson | Modern Era | Opera ...
1896–1989 American composer Thomson was trained in Paris (where he lived for many years) by Nadia Boulanger, and was friendly with several of ‘Les Six’, but his own music is more influenced by Satie and is deeply rooted in American folk music and hymns. It is melodically fresh, harmonically plain and of great simplicity; he was an influence on ...
1896–1989, American A composer of both originality and substance, Thomson produced what was arguably America’s first major opera, Four Saints in Three Acts (composed 1927–28). Hailing from a Southern Baptist background where church music, marching bands and popular American tunes were a large part of his cultural heritage, Thomson attended Harvard and studied under Nadia Boulanger ...
, it has quite often found its way into concert-hall compositions by, among others, Berg, Prokofiev, Mátyás Seiber, Paul Creston, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson and many others. A music school exclusively for accordion teachers was established in Trossingen, Germany, in 1931, becoming a fully fledged state academy in 1948, and ...
judiciously expanded his repertoire, introducing – and triumphing in – an increasing number of Wagner roles over the past decade. Introduction | Modern Era | Opera Personalities | Virgil Thomson | Modern Era | Opera Houses & Companies | La Scala, Milan | High Romantic | Opera Houses & Companies | The Birth of the Metropolitan Opera | Turn ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 2002–present) Glasgow’s Franz Ferdinand – Alex Kapranos (vocals), Robert Hardy (bass), Nicholas McCarthy (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums) – formed from the scene around the city’s college of art, but only drummer Thomson actually attended. Many wrongly consider their tightly suggestive brand of ‘art rock’ to be a result of years spent studying the visual arts, ...
conservative, Hummel nevertheless paved the way for the revolutionary composers of early Romanticism. Recommended Recording: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3, Stephen Hough, English CO (cond) Bryden Thomson (Chandos) Introduction | Early Romantic | Classical Personalities | Friedrich Kuhlau | Early Romantic | Classical ...
, Litany to the Virgin Mary, Symphony No. 3, soloists, CBSO & Chorus (cond) Sir Simon Rattle (EMI/Warner) Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Virgil Thomson | Modern Era | Classical ...
b. 1927, American From the Mississippi to the concert stages of Europe, Price helped to pave the way for black American singers. Assisted by Paul Robeson and an affluent white family in her hometown, she gained entry to Juilliard, where she appeared in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts. When ...
5), incidental music for Goethe’s Egmont and two more symphonies. He also embarked on a series of settings of British and continental folksong melodies, at the request of George Thomson of Edinburgh, making 179 settings altogether over a 10-year period. Archduke Rudolph Of all Beethoven’s aristocratic patrons, Archduke Rudolph (1788–1831) seems to have been the most devoted and ...
group, 1970–present) Keyboard player Rick Davies assembled Supertramp under the patronage of a Dutch millionaire. His most important recruit was singer Roger Hodgson. After several line-up changes, Dougie Thomson (bass), Bob Siebenberg (drums) and John Helliwell (saxophone, keyboards) joined for the third album Crime Of The Century (1974), which mixed progressive rock with accessible melodies and proved their ...
that penetrated both the complex, multi-layered textures of the 14 Chôros (1920–29) and the more restrained diatonic language of the Bachianas Brasilieras (1930–44). In the US, Ives and Thomson made extensive use of the hymn-tunes of the Sunday School and revival meetings, while Copland quoted published cowboy melodies in his popular ballets Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo ...
the War While European opera dominates the repertory in the United States, the quest for an American form, separate from the musical, has not been neglected. Virgil Thomson (1896–1989) described The Mother of Us All (1947) as a ‘musical memory book’, for the way it incorporated fragments of pre-existing American styles. It was an exuberant experiment, more ...
Academy Award-winning The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Other American composers to write for film include Copland, whose score for The Heiress (1949) won an Academy Award, and Thomson, winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for film music, for Louisiana Story (1948). Film scores by British composers that contributed memorably to the success of films include Henry ...
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