Virgil Thomson accurately predicted that as a composer he would best be remembered for his two operatic collaborations with Gertrude Stein. Their 1928 Four Saints in Three Acts premiered in 1934 and ran to some 60 performances that year--an unprecedented figure for new opera in English. Thirteen years later Thomson and most of the original cast gathered to record about half of the opera for RCA Victor. First time listeners may be baffled by the deceptively simple pump-organ harmonies and catchy hymn-like tunes, yet repeated hearings reveal more and more of Thomson's tough exterior, crystal clear orchestration, and impeccable deployment of Stein's madcap language.

Although Nonesuch made a fine digital recording of the entire score in 1981, I much prefer this earlier version's greater diversity of vocal styles, superior diction, more spirited orchestral execution, and grittier ambience. Aside from superfluous added reverb, RCA's clear and airy 1996 transfer sounds nearly as good as the singers (most of them, anyway).

Edward Matthews delivers the famous "Pigeons on the Grass, Alas" sequence with moving fullness and fervency, while Charles Holland's singular tenor timbre graces the role of St. Chavez. Though slightly past her prime, genuine star quality informs everything soprano and St. Teresa I creator Beatrice Robinson-Wayne does.

The first and better of Leopold Stokowski's two recordings of Thomson's suite culled from his film score to The Plow That Broke the Plains fills out the disc. It's easy to hear why Thomson admired this performance. The Pastorale conveys just the right lilt, the blues-tinged Speculation's syncopations are surprisingly idiomatic, and you can take dictation from the delicately balanced wistful opening and closing movements. Arkivmusic.com's "on-demand" reissue of this important release replicates the original booklet notes and libretto.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Virgil Thomson

Ken Thomson, a staple of New York City's contemporary music and jazz communities, is widely regarded for his ability to blend a rich variety of influences and styles into his own musical language while maintaining a voice unmistakably his own. Embracing the combination of complexity in harmony, rhythm, and form while adding a punk-rock aesthetic, Thomson stands alone in his unique corner of today's multifaceted musical world. As a composer, he has been commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, Bang on a Can, the True/False Film Festival, Doug Perkins, Mariel Roberts, and others, and has received awards from New Music USA, ASCAP and Meet the Composer. This newest Sextet recording features ambitious, rhythmically incisive music that flows seamlessly between elaborate contrapuntal textures, edge of your seat unison passages, and blistering improvisations from a first rate band of colleagues.

Ken Thomson's Restless features vituoso cellist Ashley Bathgate and the emerging Brooklyn-based pianist Karl Larson. This release is the follow-up to Thomson's Thaw, which was released on Cataloupe Music in 2013. Restless, in four movements for cello and piano, and Me Vs., in three movements for solo piano, are two of Thomson's most substantial chamber works. While their form and instrumentation are a clear nod to traditional idioms, Thomson's signature blend of jazz, punk and modern art music still simmers at the surface. Avant-garde influences peek through the opening strains of "Forge" and the long, tense silences of "Turn of Phrase", while the dark, almost brooding tone of "Remain Untold" suggests the sonic cataclysm to come. Throughout Restless, these sometimes sudden shifts in mood and emotion suggest a world in turmoil. Thomson's music is notoriously difficult and consistently demands the height of virtuosity and technical precision from each performer. Bathgate and Larson deftly navigate Thomson's lengthy passages while steadily building the tension and density - in the end pushing the large-scale form to dramatic climaxes.

Synthetic Waltzes (1925) is a charming legacy of those years. A stylized society waltz, it is full of subtle misbehavior, such as at the opening and conclusion, where Thomson creates the impression of two waltz tempos heard simultaneously. Other works of this period, especially his Gertrude Stein song settings, display a serious whimsy that time has not tarnished. A third opera, Lord Byron, occupied much of there making 1960s. From the later 1970s, Thomson's production tapered off, except in an area that fascinated him throughout his career, the musical "Portraits" of his friends and acquaintances. Despite increasing health problems, he composed sporadically until shortly before his death on 30th September, 1989.

"These historic, engrossing and artistically rich films, directed by Pare Lorentz with original scores by Virgil Thomson, can be seen in a new DVD release from Naxos. Together they tell a grim saga of unchecked development in the Great Plains and the Mississippi River network. New Deal programs are presented as noble ventures aimed at aiding refugee families devastated by floods, droughts and dust storms, and offering the only means to reclaim America’s natural resources and right the environmental damage...

Thomson’s scores were crucial elements of both films. Sound technology was still relatively new. Lugging recording equipment into the field to capture human voices and the sounds of natural disasters would have been almost impossible. So the documentaries were conceived as silent films, with grandly poetic voice-over narrations and near-continuous musical scores.

...the sound quality on the original prints is thin and crackly. So for this DVD, produced by the critic and concert impresario Joseph Horowitz, Naxos recruited the conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez to record the scores freshly with the Post-Classical Ensemble. The performances are lively and stylish. Floyd King makes an aptly oratorical narrator. Extra features include interviews that shed light on the improbable geneses of these films".

-- Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

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The original Pare Lorentz films with newly recorded soundtracks of the original scores by Virgil Thomson.

Pare Lorentz's films "The Plow that Broke the Plains" (1936) and "The River" (1937) are landmark American documentary films. Aesthetically, they break new ground in seamlessly marrying pictorial imagery, symphonic music, and free poetic verse, all realized with supreme artistry. Ideologically, they indelibly encapsulate the strivings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal." Virgil Thomson's scores for both films are among the most famous ever composed for the movies. Aaron Copland praised the music of "The Plow" for its "frankness and openness of feeling," calling it "fresher, more simple, and more personal" than the Hollywood norm. He the music for "The River" "a lesson in how to treat Americana."

Special Features include:
1. George Stoney on "The Plow that Broke the Plains"
2. Stoney on The New Deal, "The River," and Race
3. Charles Fussell on Virgil Thomson
4. Virgil Thomson on Virgil Thomson (audio only)
5. Original beginning and ending of "The Plow"
6. Option to view both movies with original soundtrack and narration

R E V I E W S


Many of us have heard suites of the music that Virgil Thomson wrote for Pare Lorentz’s documentary/propaganda films, The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937), but few alive today have had the opportunity to hear the music in its original context and to see the films themselves. With support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, and the MARPAT Foundation, Naxos has released both films on this DVD, with new recordings of the soundtrack music by Angel Gil-Ordónez and the Post-Classical Ensemble, and new readings of the original narrations by Floyd King. Each film is about 30 minutes long, and Naxos has added value to this release by including almost an additional hour of interviews and other bonus features.


In spite of the headnote, this will be a review more about the Naxos release and the films as a whole, and less about the music. Readers with good memory will know that I seldom muster much enthusiasm for Thomson’s music, and there’s nothing in these scores that changes my mind. This is functional music that supports the images on the screen, and creates an agreeable (but not more) listening experience when heard on its own. Much of the material used by Thomson comes from folk and popular songs, and hymns. For example, the Doxology repeatedly appears in The Plow , sometimes going with the grain of the action, and sometimes ironically going against it. Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight also makes ironic appearances. To its credit, Thomson’s music doesn’t tell us how to feel about the images that we are seeing; it simply supports their presentation, letting us draw our own conclusions.


The conductor on the original soundtrack was Alexander Smallens, and the narrator was Thomas Chalmers. For this release, the soundtracks have been “re-created” in modern sound by the aforementioned narrator and performers. (Somewhat hidden among the special features is the opportunity to watch both films with their original soundtracks.) It is possible that some will complain that these new soundtracks are heresy, tantamount to reissuing Walt Disney’s Fantasia with a new soundtrack conducted by somebody other than Leopold Stokowski. Again, not knowing the original films, and not being a passionate fan of Thomson, this bothered me not a bit. Of course, because the films have not been updated, this scheme doesn’t leave much room for creativity on the part of King, Ordóñez, and the Post-Classical Ensemble, but they all do a solid job of fitting their performances to the preexisting films. King’s visionary, even hortatory narration probably is tantamount to “authentic performance practice.” It sounds corny today, but these films were trying to educate people about man-made environmental crises (unwise farming practices in The Plow , the dangers of excessive and unregulated logging and land development in The River ), and having a narrator with the oratorical style of a preacher probably made a world of difference to audiences in the late 1930s.


The other special features include 21 minutes of interviews with documentary filmmaker George Stoney, who presented these films to their first audiences in small-town America. His insights are interesting, but the presentation is a little amateurish; in several instances, the out-of-focus hand of the gesturing interviewer comes into the frame between the camera and Mr. Stoney. Composer Charles Fussell participates in a nearly 18-minute interview about Thomson’s music. Also, there’s an 8-minute audio-only interview from 1979 (“Virgil Thomson on Virgil Thomson”), and the original beginning and ending of The Plow . Also, it should be noted that three passages of music ultimately not included in the original films for various reasons have been restored here.


The films themselves make interesting viewing. Of course they are dated, but not as much as one might think, because we continue to do harm to our environment (and ultimately, our livelihoods and our lives) through thoughtless or selfish actions. Visually, sometimes the films are striking—Paul Strand was among the cinematographers—but Stoney burst my bubble a little bit by revealing that even some of the “modern” footage was staged, Also, some of the more effective scenes (for example, logs coursing down logging chutes toward the river) were taken from unreleased or obscure Hollywood films of that era. There appears to have been little restoration of the film elements for this release.


The historical importance of this release is undeniable. It probably is essential for fans of the composer, as well as for those who are interested in the history of the documentary film, the Great Depression, and FDR’s New Deal. For everyone else, it’s worth at least a single watch and a listen.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

Everbest Music presents a reissue of two classic Virgil Thomson albums: Portraits and Self-Portraits and Mostly About Love. Performed by pianist and New York Times chief classical critic Anthony Tommasini, these out-of-print gems are now available as Portraits, Self-Portraits and Songs in a 2-CD set, digital download, and streaming formats. Previously released on Northeastern Records, these definitive recordings feature 22 of Thomson’s chamber and vocal works, showcasing his signature wit and shrewd musical style.

Virgil Thomson was not the first to compose musical portraits, but his are singular in that they were drawn from life. Gertrude Stein did this in literature and Thomson, ever her disciple, aspired to do so in music; the “model” would sit for their portrait, and the score page would become a canvas. These discs feature 70 of the 110 portraits for solo piano–representing the largest collection of these piano portraits ever recorded by one artist–brought to life by Craig Rutenberg, distinguished pianist, friend, and colleague of Mr. Thomson.

Pare Lorentz's The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937) are landmark American documentary films. Aesthetically, they break new ground in seamlessly marrying pictorial imagery, symphonic music, and poetic free verse, all realized with supreme artistry. Ideologically, they indelibly encapsulate the strivings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.

The first film created by the United States Government for commercial release and distribution, The Plow was also – in the words of the film-music historian Neil Lerner – "the most widely publicized attempt by the federal government to communicate to its entire citizenry through a motion picture." It became the first film to be placed in Congressional archives and, following the wishes of FDR, would have become the first film screened at a joint session of Congress had the capitol chambers been equipped to show a sound film.

Virgil Thomson's scores for both films – here recorded in their entirety for the first time since Alexander Smallens conducted the soundtracks – are among the most famous ever composed for the movies. Aaron Copland praised the music for The Plow for its "frankness and openness of feeling," calling it "fresher, more simple, and more personal" than the Hollywood norm. He called the music for The River "a lesson in how to treat Americana."

The Plow that Broke the Plains was denounced (accurately) as New Deal propaganda. Sensing competition, Hollywood barred The Plow from its distribution system. Billed "The Picture They Dared Us to Show!" it opened at New York's Rialto Theatre and was cheered nightly. Public demand prevailed: eventually, over 3,000 theaters (out of 14,000 commercial cinemas nationally) screened The Plow to enthusiastic reviews. The Baltimore Sun found "more serious drama in this truthful record of the soil than in all the 'Covered Wagons' and 'Big Trails' produced by the commercial cinema."

Voted the best documentary at the 1938 Venice Film Festival (beating Leni Riefenstahl's Olympiad), The River was an overwhelming critical and commercial success. Paramount Pictures accepted it for national distribution. Lorentz's script, a Whitmanesque poem called by James Joyce "the most beautiful prose that I have heard in ten years," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

The rationale for the present CD is obvious: the original thirties' soundtracks, gritty and opaque, do not do justice to Thomson's scores; more recently, this music has only been performed and recorded in the form of suites culled by Thomson, with many pages omitted.

REVIEW:

The current offering by James Sedares and the New Zealand Symphony is the best [Thomson recording] yet, with a big, clear sound and some virtuoso work from several sections, for example, the brass. As a bonus, the New Zealanders include Pilgrims and Pioneers, here recorded for the first time. (Thomson wrote this in 1964 for John Houseman's Journey to America, a one-reel film that was shown four times an hour in the U.S. Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.) Finally, this recording's fine liner notes by Marina and Victor Ledin include Thomson's own program notes from the first performances of these works.

-- American Music (Michael Meackna) Fall 2000

Sedares's generally fine performance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra shows why the Symphony on a Hymn Tune has enjoyed the most popularity of Thomson's works...the Allegretto's rhythms are pointed incisively and with great flair, and Sedares builds the finale quite successfully with ardor and warmth, the bizarre repeated hammer chords of the coda aptly unsettling.

It's a grand idea to offer all three of Virgil Thomson's symphonies on one disc - at budget price no less-so obvious one wonders why no one has done it before...the playing of the New Zealand symphony is most impressive throughout, and the recorded sound is first-class. This disc neatly plugs a gap in the Thomson discography. Highly recommended.

-- Fanfare (Lawrence A. Johnson)