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Book Review
May. 2nd, 2018 11:02 pmArt of Judging Music
by Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an early modernist composer, largely neglected nowadays, who also had a successful career as a music critic in New York. The Art of Judging Music is a compilation of his reviews and columns from the 1940s, with an introductory essay. The collection provides a very interesting account of musical life in New York during and just after the war. I especially enjoyed the post-war excursions to Europe which gave first hand accounts of the de-nazification of German musicians and the rebuilding of musical life in Germany and elsewhere. I also found it interesting to see what Thomson got wrong in his predictions and judgments regarding what new works would stand the test of time. Particularly amusing was the review of a dance performance in which he asserted that Hindemith's Herodiade would find a more permanent and celebrated place in the repertoire than the other work on the program - Copland's Appalachian Spring. On the other hand, given that these columns were penned in the 1940s, there is an a level of ambient sexism and racism that would be unacceptable today (and should not have been so acceptable in the past).
by Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an early modernist composer, largely neglected nowadays, who also had a successful career as a music critic in New York. The Art of Judging Music is a compilation of his reviews and columns from the 1940s, with an introductory essay. The collection provides a very interesting account of musical life in New York during and just after the war. I especially enjoyed the post-war excursions to Europe which gave first hand accounts of the de-nazification of German musicians and the rebuilding of musical life in Germany and elsewhere. I also found it interesting to see what Thomson got wrong in his predictions and judgments regarding what new works would stand the test of time. Particularly amusing was the review of a dance performance in which he asserted that Hindemith's Herodiade would find a more permanent and celebrated place in the repertoire than the other work on the program - Copland's Appalachian Spring. On the other hand, given that these columns were penned in the 1940s, there is an a level of ambient sexism and racism that would be unacceptable today (and should not have been so acceptable in the past).
