Comparing Critiquers: Virgil Thomson and Ned Rorem

By another of the happy coincidences that seem to frequently and undeservedly bless my life here in Lexington, I stumbled upon the works of two major 20th century music critics just before I was asked to do the same in an assignment. For one connection I can blame my friend Todd - if you do not check out that library book in your hands, I will be happy to do so instead - and the second connection I can blame on my ceaseless urge to browse secondhand bookstores. This is why in a few short weeks I had collections by Virgil Thomson and Ned Rorem open in front of me.

The first author is one whom I had only previously known as a composer (and disliked.) Virgil Thomson's Symphony on a Hymn Tune is solid American Neo-Classicism, picked up in Paris by diligent study with that indefatigable teacher Nadia Boulanger. Unfortunately, solid American Neo-Classicism is a style that has turned me off for years. I prefer the Parisian strain of Poulenc and Milhaud; music that seems to have been as fun to compose as it is to perform. Nevertheless, I am happy to report that solid American musical criticism, written mostly during the 1940s, is something I thoroughly enjoy reading.

Thomson's style of writing is clear and no-nonsense. He neither minces nor wastes words. A typical review of a performance is under 500 words and as even-handed as a human being can be. Thomson never issues praise or blame exclusively, but mixes them. If this implies his writing is dull, it is emphatically not. Thomson's judgments are often pithy and can be all the more effective for being understated in tone. For example, from a performance conducted by Charles Munch (spelled "Muench" by Thomson): "All the same, and with a vast experience behind him on both sides of the Rhine, [Munch] remains Alsatian. You never know quite where his musical sympathies lie."

Here is the opening sentence of another review: "Tossy Spivakovsky, who played a recital last night in Carnegie Hall, is a sensationally effective violinist when he is effective and a major disappointment when he is not." There follows a succinct analysis of exactly why Spivakovsky is not always reliable, down to a discussion of how he holds his bow. Even when Thomson does not enjoy the music or its interpreters, he still writes as accurately and objectively as possible in accordance with one of his core principles, set forth in the introductory essay: "Service, indeed, is the price of any profession's toleration by society."

This truth may explain why most of Ned Rorem's published prose comes from his personal diaries. A professional composer, Rorem is perhaps better known for his writing than his compositions. I cannot compare them, not yet having been exposed to his music, but his prose is blunt, biased, witty and compulsively readable. He seems to divide the world of music into two clear categories: music that is French and music that is not. Though American-born, Rorem is a self-described Francophile who emigrated as a young man, remaining in France for many years. He writes, "My early emigration to France was not that of an American in need of a change; I had felt myself born out of context and wanted to go back to a different womb." His new countrymen's reply after "spilling forth my oh-so-sensual Gallic wit to comprehending ears"? "Their reaction was: Why so cold and humorless, Ned, so Nordic and inhibited? Be more French."

Within his black-and-white world, Rorem further divides music into that which he cannot comprehend (anything by Richard Strauss, particularly Der Rosenkavalier) and that which he loves passionately but still criticizes (anything by Francis Poulenc or Maurice Ravel.) Writing always about composers and their compositions, never about specific performances, Rorem rhapsodizes over these and other Gallic masters while gleefully pointing out all the instances of plagiarism in their works: "Nuages paraphrases Mussorgsky's Sans Soleil, as does more than coincidentally, Stravinsky's prelude to Le Rossignol. But by the turn of the century Debussy had become himself: himself in a position to be stolen from."

This is one of Rorem's main points, at least in this collection: all composers beg, borrow, or steal material from each other. This may be certain chord progressions, or details of ornamentation or instrumental scoring. The genius lies in how they make this stolen material their own. "The professional disguises a theft by stamping it with his trademark. The amateur has no trademark; he doesn't know he's stolen; he peddles black-and-white reproductions."

Quite a provocative thought, just as those Richard Taruskin wishes to plant; perhaps the next step for me could be trying to identify the musical thefts of Ned Rorem. Then again, there is always the possibility of tracing the critical thefts - the ideological thefts? "Paraphrasing" or "misreading" would be more polite - of the authors whose works we will read in this course.