Copyright © 2011 by University of Nebraska–Lincoln, all rights reserved. Redistribution or republication in any medium, except as allowed under the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Virgil Thomson, classical composer and music critic, was born on November 25, 1896, in Kansas City, Missouri, where he learned piano and played organ at his family's Calvary Baptist Church. After serving in the army during World War I, Thomson studied composition and conducting in New York, Paris, and Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1923. Returning to Paris in 1925, his home until 1940, Thomson came under the influence of composition pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and French composer Erik Satie, whose clarity, simplicity, and humor he admired.
Thomson's large body of work, which includes operas, symphonies, chamber pieces, songs, and film scores, while reflecting the classicism of his formal studies, is largely rooted in his early musical experiences in Kansas City. Indeed, in his well-known scores for the celebrated documentary films
In addition to composing, Thomson enjoyed a successful career as a music journalist. Having established himself in the pages of
See also FILM: The Plow That Broke the Plains.