THOMSON: Piano Music - Nigel Coxe

Piano Music by Virgil Thomson liner notes

The First and Second Piano Sonatas were composed within a month of each other in November-December, 1929. These remarkable and intriguing works eschew the usual implications of the form and show a highly personal vision in its use. They are in striking contrast: no. 1, genial, sunny, and extrovert; no. 2, withdrawn, poetic, and reflective. Both also were transcribed later: no. 1 as Symphony no. 2 for full orchestra and no. 2 as Autumn, a concerti no for strings, harp, and percussion. ...PORTRAITS Virgil Thomson also is noted for his musical Portraits, a form he first used in 1927 and has cultivated regularly ever since. Musical portraiture has been practiced by certain composers from Couperin in the early 18th century through Schumann and Anton Rubinstein in the 19th to Edward Elgar in the 20th. These composers wrote such works at leisure and from memory. Virgil Thomson has preferred to make his portraits the exact musical counterpart of painting, composing them from life in the presence of the subject, usually at one sitting. The stimulus of writing in this highly disciplined, spontaneous way has been most congenial to him, resulting in over 150 works for solo and instrumental combinations. In the Portraits the composer's aim has been " ... to catch in all cases a likeness recognizable to persons acquainted with the sitter. The interest of these pieces for the musical public at large, however, must depend, of course, on whatever intrinsic merit they may be found to possess." He further states, " ... The musical style of the pieces varies with the personality of the subject. Sometimes it is harmonious, sometimes dissonant, sometimes straightforwardly tuneful, sometimes thematically or contrapuntally developed." The pieces carry descriptive titles as well as the sitters' identities.