Final Album of Thomson Portraits from Everbest

Virgil Thomson at work on a composition (photograph by Christopher Cox, courtesy of AMT Public Relations)

Readers may recall that I have been making it a point to keep up with the efforts of Everbest Music to release recordings of music composed by Virgil Thomson. I was particularly interested in his approach to composing “portraits” of the rich and diverse individual that were part of his life in one capacity or another. I had my first opportunity to write about those efforts in January of 2021, after I had listened to the Everbest album entitled Portraits, Self-Portraits and Songs. This morning I finished my first listening encounter with Everbest’s latest Thomson album, entitled A Gallery of Portraits for Piano and Other Piano Works, which was released this past Friday. This is a two-CD set; and, because those portraits are basically miniatures, it accounts for 81 tracks! The pianist for the album is Craig Rutenberg.

Thomson was born on November 25, 1896 and died on September 30, 1989. To say that he lived a rich and productive life would be bordering on understatement. I was fortunate enough to meet him on one occasion. He did not have much to say, and he may have been offended because that encounter also provided my first and only contact with dance critic Edwin Denby, whom, at that time, I found far more interesting! Thus, I learned more about Thomson by reading his autobiography, even if he had completed it several decades before his death.

However, it is clear that I was not one of the myriad of individuals in his life that were important enough for him to capture in a musical portrait! Nevertheless, I suspect that most listeners that scan the track list will encounter only a few familiar names with Pablo Picasso at the top of that list. (One of Picasso’s models, Dora Mar, appears on the previous track!) Another familiar name (at least to those of my generation) would be John Houseman. Ironically, his track was followed by Rodney Lister, who was one of my fellow students during my undergraduate years.

Where the “other piano works” on the album are concerned, I was more that delighted to encounter music I had worked on back when my hands were still agile. Readers may recall that, during the pandemic, I wrote about the music that Virgil Thomson had composed for Pare Lorentz’ film The Plow That Broke the Plains. Thomas prepared two concert adaptations of this music, a six-movement suite for orchestra and one with only four movements for solo piano. I was surprised by how easily the latter fit under my hands; and I took great pleasure in playing it (as did my wife in listening). Rutenberg included that version on his Everbest album, along with a similar piano reduction of music Thomson had composed for the ballet “Filling Station.”

In other words, much of my enjoyment of this new release is grounded on many fine personal memories; and I can only hope that a new generation of listeners can also discover pleasures in listening to this music (if not also taking to trouble to try playing some of it)!