Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomsonwas an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassicist, and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera Lord Byron which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth25 November 1896
CityKansas City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
I said to my friends that if I was going to starve, I might as well starve where the food is good.
In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.
I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Music itself is not going to let you down.
I got myself into a lovely little shall we say controversy with André Breton, by pointing out that the discipline of spontaneity, which he was asking his surrealist neophytes to adopt, was new for language but something that composers had been practicing for centuries.
Verbal communication about music is impossible except among musicians.
I don't go around regretting things that don't happen.
Musicians own music because music owns them.
I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.