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73807 results in Boydell & Brewer

Page 1312 of 3691

  • Chapter XVI - The Early Retirement Years (1965-75)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 775-852

  • Summary

    How you continue to create works of such exquisite purity

    and vocal clarity I shall never understand!

    (Bruce Montgomery)

    How good it is to see that gentleness has

    not disappeared from the world.

    (Kirke Mechem)

    OVERVIEW

    Having officially retired from Harvard, Thompson was now free to travel abroad to his much-loved Gstaad whenever he desired, almost always adding stays in London, Paris, and occasionally Rome. He and Margaret were often joined by some of their grown children and in later years by their grandchildren during ski season, and Margaret continued to enjoy regular trips to Paris to visit its famous couturiers. In 1970 the Thompsons, always renters or guests at the Park Hotel in Gstaad, purchased a châlet of their own, Les Trois Ours (The Three Bears), utilizing funds from the sale of their Saunderstown house.

    Freedom from teaching duties permitted Randall to accept conducting and speaking engagements, his very lifeblood, that were now offered with increasing frequency. When in Cambridge he and Margaret maintained a bustling social schedule, together enjoying cocktails and dining with friends or Randall visiting his various clubs. He continued to attend Harvard concerts and to fulfill those commissions that interested him while rejecting or ignoring an increasing number that didn’t.

    In his first decade of retirement he composed choral works at the rate of approximately one per year, after which the pace slowed considerably. These include: A Psalm of Thanksgiving for the New England Conservatory (1966-67: RT 95); String Quartet no. 2 in G major for the Harvard Musical Association (1967: RT 96); The Place of the Blest for the Choir School of Saint Thomas Church in New York City (1968-69: RT 97); The Eternal Dove for his friend and colleague G. Wallace Woodworth (1968: RT 98); Katie's Dance for his granddaughter (1969: RT 99); Wedding Music for the Rome marriage of his son Randall Thompson, Jr. to Delia M. C. Hayes (1971: RT 100); Two Herbert Settings (RT 101, the first in 1970 in memory of granddaughter Katie and the second in 1971 undedicated); A Hymn for Scholars and Pupils in honor of the tenth anniversary of the restoration and reorganization of Wykeham Rise School in Washington, Connecticut dedicated to Elisabeth and Carleton Sprague Smith (1973: RT 102);

  • Chapter XIII - Princeton University (Fall 1945-Spring 1948)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 545-572

  • Summary

    He is an excellent lecturer and, though not

    an historical scholar, competently

    informed and authoritative.

    (Roy Welch)

    THE HIRING PROCESS

    Having weathered an exceedingly busy 1945 spring term, Thompson was surprised to receive a letter from Professor Roy Welch of Princeton University discussing an upcoming vacancy on the faculty. As he explained to Bronson:

    The point is, that Welch writes that Sessions is going to Berkeley and asks whether I am susceptible to an inducement to succeed him. I have replied that we’d be glad to have him (Welch) visit us this week-end; and he arrives tomorrow night.

    O, how I wish you were nearby to talk to. I’d so love to know what your feeling would be about our moving to Princeton. I have put out such roots here and have, in a studied way, trained myself to think of myself as belonging here, staying here for the long pull, insusceptible of any offers to go elsewhere. The whole community is mine and I am its! I have pictured myself as staying here till I retired from teaching.

    Margaret felt otherwise, as you know, and there is no doubt that being here has robbed us of one of the children after another. And the center of their activities will not grow nearer to Ch’ville with the years… .

    Much depends on what the details of Welch's offer stack up to. But I foresee that it is going to be hard to say no… .

    If they’d assigned us a house on the Lawn, instead of giving it to Sna¬vely, wd that have made us feel more permanent, more loathe to go? And if so, would buying a house now make us feel like staying? What sort of house might one hope to get in Princeton, after all? O, for a sign, a sign!

    Sessions, who had been teaching there since 1936, had accepted a faculty appointment in the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley beginning fall 1945. Years later, interviewed by his biographer Andrea Olmstead, he explained his reasons for leaving Princeton.

Aldo Parisot, The Cellist
  • The Importance of the Circle
  • Volume 15
  • Hawkshaw Susan
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018
  • This book chronicles the rise to fame of acclaimed cellist Aldo Parisot, who has established himself as both an extraordinary soloist and teacher.

  • Chapter Three - Realizing a Dream—An International Solo Career

  • Hawkshaw Susan
  • Book:
    Aldo Parisot, The Cellist
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 29-42

  • Summary

    Barbirolli, Bernstein, Golschmann, Mehta, Monteux, and Stokowski. Tailor-made: Premiere of the Second Cello Concerto by Heitor Villa- Lobos–the sounds of Brazil. Meeting János Starker. Establishing himself in Europe as a solo performer.

    “I looked at the audience and I remember thinking, “SO WHAT?”

    Aldo Parisot

    Parisot received excellent reviews for his debut at Town Hall on 30 March 1950. The New York Times wrote, for example:

    Aldo Parisot, Brazilian cellist, has a winning way with a musical phrase…Mr. Parisot's best moments (as those of most cellists) came in the quiet, sustained passages on the upper half of his register. His gentle attacks and shaded endings, along with the variety of colors and speech-like dynamics between, contributed to a communication of high order in those places. He achieved a delightfully deft handling of the light rhythms in Mozart's “Sonatina” (an arrangement by Piatigorsky) as well, and his intonation was quite accurate. Some of the evening's best playing came in the first performance of Villa-Lobos's Fantasia, whose characteristically soulful melodies and exotic effects seemed well suited to Mr. Parisot's temperament.”

    The excellence of performance, including delicate shadings of color and affinity for Brazilian music that Parisot is known for, is clearly in evidence. Parisot has a very positive attitude towards performing as we can see from the quote that precedes this chapter. Town Hall, with its intimate setting and central location, has traditionally been a focal point for many prominent creative artists, among them classical musicians and jazz artists, as well as poets. His cello must have sounded magnificent in this elegant space with its plush red seats and curtain.

    With this recital, he not only furthered his reputation as an outstanding solo performer, but also continued another facet of his professional life—his interest in contemporary music. His performance contained the familiar and the new—as well as the exotic. After playing a Mozart Sonatina and a Beethoven Sonata, he gave the first performance in the U. S. of the Villa-Lobos Fantasia with piano accompaniment. (The Municipal Orchestra of Rio with Villa-Lobos conducting first performed it in Brazil.) On the second half, which included works for chamber orchestra conducted by Eleazar de Carvalho, was another first—the premiere of Yale composer Quincy Porter's Fantasy and Dance, which Parisot had requested, and which was written especially for and dedicated to him.

  • Entr'acte: Parisot as Painter—The Importance of the Circle—Spectrum of Color in Art and Music

  • Hawkshaw Susan
  • Book:
    Aldo Parisot, The Cellist
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 43-50

  • Summary

    Parisot's style as a painter. Painting he made for Lutoslawski. Paintings on display at the Yale School of Music. Art shows.

    “I find the circle has a great deal of rhythm and has a great deal to do with music.” Aldo Parisot

    One can tell much about Parisot the man from looking at his paintings. Bright colors speak of his fiery temperament, his personal warmth and love of life. Colored paper spilling outside the canvas is a mark of his originality. His art has an improvisatory, spontaneous feel and a joyous quality. Strong angular lines partition the canvas; they may direct the eye outside the canvas. His great generosity is apparent in the way he puts his paintings in the service of music—by selling them not for personal profit, but to build his Cello Enrichment Fund, and on occasion by donating them to other schools or festivals as fund raisers.

    The canvases also hint at a long-standing professional interest. His work with line and structure speaks of an interest in design that led him early in life to pursue a degree in architecture. His art has the precision and detail of an architect—he works in acrylic but also uses markers and “Sharpie” pens. His “Rhapsody in Orange,” seems spontaneous and joyous both in the use of the title “rhapsody,” the strong choice of color, and in the rhythm of the art itself. Diagonal lines partition the canvas, but the majority of shapes in the painting are circles or half circles that seem in motion, or free, suspended. Parisot reveals his feeling about the circle in an interview. “There are a great deal of geometric forms and circles in my paintings. I find the circle has a great deal of rhythm and has a great deal to do with music.”

    The circle is important in his teaching. “The body has no angles. You must folow the natural laws of the body, and all of the technical problems can be solved. When you shift, what moves first is the back muscle, then the upper arm, elbow, and forearm; the hand is making circles. When you cross the strings you make a little circle. When you move the bow you also make a little circle—you don't do it if you want an accent.”

  • Chapter Two - Establishing Himself in the United States Yale, Hindemith, and Winning the Koussevitzky Prize

  • Hawkshaw Susan
  • Book:
    Aldo Parisot, The Cellist
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 19-28

  • Summary

    Arrival at Yale. Study with Hindemith. Concertizing and making contacts. Debut at Tanglewood with conductor Eleazar de Carvalho.

    Parisot “possesses finesse, technical accomplishment and draws from his exquisite instrument a ravishing tone.”

    So I came to America. I couldn't speak English, of course, and I was waiting for the man to say, “New Haven.” A woman from the music school went to the train to get me. And when the man was going by, “New Haven!” I said, “Oh, this is it.” So I got my little bag, and I don't know how she found out, or maybe they gave her a picture of mine, and she said, “You are Aldo Parisot?” And I said, “No English.”

    Parisot arrived in America in 1946, to a prosperous postwar America where there were many opportunities for performance. He had been recommended highly by Carleton Sprague Smith. After Parisot's arrival in the United States, Smith remained a friend, sometimes playing the flute with him in chamber combinations. Parisot arrived at a time when the Yale School of Music was making changes in organization and curriculum. A recommendation had been made in 1941 to admit only advanced students. The number of students was smaller than it is today, averaging one hundred and thirty two per year between 1945 and 1954. After the war, there were approximately eight special students per year—Parisot was a special student from 1946-1948.

    Parisot settled in an apartment on Crown Street, where, as luck would have it, clarinetist Keith Wilson, who had been hired as assistant professor of wind playing and band director at Yale, also lived. Parisot practiced for hours. “Keith came in 1946, and he used to live in the basement. The whole building is still there. I think it has five floors, loaded with pianists, all pianists. Only my roommate was a cellist. I remember playing in the bathroom in the middle of the night, practicing, because I wanted to be really good.” He was soon playing with his friends and colleagues at Yale— with members of the Yale faculty such as Wilson.

  • Chapter II - Undergraduate Study at Harvard College (1916-20)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 43-94

  • Summary

    Though I was not naturally a very good

    student, I had a fine education.

    (Randall Thompson)

    Thompson spent four years as an undergraduate at Harvard College, class of 1920. These years saw significant disruption when the United States entered World War I, and he served in the Naval Reserve in 1917-18 while a student. As will be seen, his undergraduate years were full of musical and social dis¬coveries, on the one hand, and by precarious grades and academic probation during the second semester of his sophomore year on the other. Following graduation “Cum Laude Musicae” in June 1920 he took a year off from aca¬demic life moving to New York City in order to take twenty private lessons with the renowned composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) before returning to Cambridge in September 1921 to earn his A. M. degree from Harvard and complete his formal education in spring 1922.

    FRESHMAN YEAR 1916-17

    The summer following graduation from the Lawrenceville School found Thompson busy as usual. His family did some travelling to Granby Notch, Connecticut and Hog Island, Maine before gathering in Cambridge to settle him into his assigned room (A21) in Harvard's Persis Smith Hall. On September 25, 1916, while there, Thompson's father paid a courtesy visit to Professor Walter Spalding, Chair of the Department of Music and schedul¬ing advisor to incoming music students. Three weeks later Grace noted in her diary, “Ran happy at Harvard.”

    Harvard's academic year customarily began in late September, broke for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, with classes resuming in early January. First semester exams took place in late January and the initial weeks of February. After a break around Easter, the year concluded with examina¬tions in mid-June followed by commencement and summer vacation. As will be seen, however, the entry into World War I by the United States dramati¬cally altered this schedule.

    Members of the class of 1920 and other new students were welcomed at a reception given by the St. Paul's Society and the Parish of Christ Church in their parish house on Garden Street, and at the official Harvard greeting on the 27th at Phillips Brooks House.

  • Appendix Three - Interviews with Colleagues (former students).

  • Hawkshaw Susan
  • Book:
    Aldo Parisot, The Cellist
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 133-172

  • Summary

  • Ole Akahoshi

  • Pansy Chang

  • Patrick Jee

  • Ralph Kirshbaum

  • Rhonda Rider

  • Shauna Rolston

  • Barrett Sills

  • Jian Wang

  • Tom Wiebe

    • Ole Akahosh i Interview. Nor fol k, CT 7/8/11

    I studied in Bloomington, Indiana with Mr. Janos Starker from 1989 to 1992. Mr. Starker and Mr. Parisot are very close friends. Mr. Parisot came to Bloomington for the Eva Janzer Festival. As part of this festival, there was a cello ensemble that Mr. Parisot conducted. Quite a few cellists attended, and I was sitting somewhere in the back. For some reason, I must have caught his eye; maybe I was not involved enough, or I looked hesitant, or scared. All of a sudden, Mr. Parisot started picking on me: “Play your part,” and I had to play the part. Then it moved on to “Play the beginning of the Dvořák Concerto,” in front of everyone. This went on for quite a while. That was my first encounter with Mr. Parisot.

    It was my last year in Bloomington, and Mr. Starker was thinking about whom I should study with after leaving. Mr. Starker recommended Mr. Parisot, first and foremost, as the teacher for me. During the Eva Janzer Festival Mr. Parisot gave a cello class with Mr. Starker sitting right next to him, and I played. At that time, according to Mr. Parisot, I was playing quite a bit in the style of Mr. Starker, without moving too much physically. Mr. Parisot said to Mr. Starker, “It's fine if this boy comes to Yale to study with me, but I am going to completely change him as a cellist,” which he did. I am really, really grateful because Mr. Parisot helped me to find myself. What Mr. Parisot gave me went far beyond the cello lessons. For me, Mr. Parisot has always been a friend that I could trust completely. He was like my father—sometimes like my grandfather- -since I am in the States by myself. It has been twenty-four years since I first met him in 1992. I studied with him at Yale and at Juilliard.

  • Chapter VI - New York City—Wellesley College—A Guggenheim Fellowship (1927-31)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 203-248

  • Summary

    Switzerland has proved to be ideal for my work.

    (Randall Thompson)

    MAKING A LIVING

    WRITING REVIEWS

    Lacking a permanent position Thompson cobbled together literary writing and composition to generate income. Several months before his marriage, he had started writing book reviews for the Saturday Review of Literature. Five were published between December 11, 1926 and November 5, 1927, all of which deal with musical subjects—three contain actual musical com¬positions, a fourth concerns Wagner's lovers, and the fifth muses about the future of music. In the course of these reviews published under the heading Ars Lyrica, Thompson reveals considerable erudition and an appropriately heady literary style of description skillfully designed to engage his audience. This is illustrated by the opening paragraph of his November 1927 review of Sigmund Spaeth's Read ‘em and Weep, The Songs You Forgot to Remember.

    With a giant sabre as long as from 1755 to the death of Valentino, Mr. Spaeth has cleft open the large, heterogeneous mass of American popular songs. Admittedly he reveals only a cross-section, but along the walls of the rift that he has made one can trace quite clearly the multicolored procession of vocal efforts. And thanks to his master stroke we are not made to rehearse any but the best of the lot; and these are presented in a light-hearted, vigor¬ously intelligent way.

    When he reviewed Robert A. Simon's Bronx Ballads—after his work on The Grand Street Follies of 1926 in which he had unfurled tunes by sev¬eral composers—Thompson's interest must have been piqued by Simon's clever parodies of Bizet's Carmen, Rachmaninov's Prélude in C-sharp minor, Wagner's Tannhäuser, and other works in the introductions to songs. Some¬times Simon even tantalized the pianist with phrases such as “Like something you’ve heard before”! He must have been equally amused by Spaeth's mastery of musical style and ability to parody music from widely divergent nationali¬ties in Words and Music: A Book of Burlesques in which, among other things, he sets “The Musical Adventures of Jack and Jill” as an oratorio version, a Schubert version, an Italian operatic version, a modern French version, and finally a jazz version! What remuneration he received is unknown, but these reviews helped get his name before a well-educated readership.

  • Appendix Two - Additional Material on Festivals, Competitions, and Conservatories

  • Hawkshaw Susan
  • Book:
    Aldo Parisot, The Cellist
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 127-132

  • Summary

    Following below are more detailed accounts of his activities at some of the festivals, competitions, and some conservatories. In some cases competitions are part of the festival. The information has been gathered from concert programs and printed material from the festivals.

    NORTH AMERICA

    1. UNITED STATES: Norfolk, CT, Garrett Lakes, Maryland, and the Harid Conservatory, Boca Raton, Florida.

    Parisot enjoyed a long and fruitful association with the Yale Summer School of Music in Norfolk, CT, playing much solo repertoire in addition to his other duties. He often performed new works there before he performed them in larger venues. On occasion he brought his students to perform and sometimes invited illustrious colleagues. The relaxed and informal atmosphere made this festival a special place. And it was here that Parisot also nurtured his interest in art.

    Parisot played his first concert at Norfolk with pianist Leopold Mittman on 19 July 1950, a solo program that included the Villa-Lobos Fantasia and the Quincy Porter Fantasy and Dance (the Porter written especially for Parisot)– both pieces that had been on his debut recital earlier in that year. Parisot also gave the premieres of two other solo works expressly written for him, one by Alvin Etler, the Concerto for Cello and Chamber Group, and the other the extraordinary virtuoso solo vehicle with which he had a tremendous success, as we have seen: Parisonatina by Donald Martino. In 1971 Parisot performed the piece that Yehudi Wyner wrote expressly for him, De Novo. And at some point he and Keith Wilson also performed the von Winter Concerto for Cello and Clarinet. Among the major solo concertos that Parisot performed at Norfolk are the Dvorak Concerto, in 1967, the Lalo Concerto, in 1970, and a Hindemith Concerto Op. 36, No. 2, also in 1970. And there were others.

    From 1959-1975, a period of seventeen years, Parisot is listed on the faculty of Norfolk; then subsequently he is also listed from 1980-1982, 1985- 1986, and 1989-1990; and there are programs that confirm his continued activity in Norfolk to the late nineties.

  • Chapter I - Family History and Formative Years

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 1-42

  • Summary

    … and I was thrilled when my father produced

    this old-fashioned square piano.

    (Randall Thompson)

    EARLY FAMILY HISTORY

    Randall Thompson's family roots extend deep into America's past. The Sturgis family on Thompson's maternal side can be traced back to the pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower in 1620. Subsequently they travelled from Cape Cod to Maine where they settled. In more recent times Randall's great-grandfather, George Le Baron Randall (1815-94), married Caroline Matilda Sturgis (1822-93) on October 16, 1845. Their son, Ira Hildanus Randall (1847-1919), married Adeline (Addie) Morse Webber (1847-83), and their daughter Grace Brightman Randall (1870-1932) became Randall's mother.

    On the paternal side Randall's great-great-great-grandfather, Alexander Thompson (1761-1827), who had immigrated from Perth, Scotland in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, settling in Antrim, New Hamp¬shire, married Elizabeth Nutt (1772-1840), and their son, Daniel Thompson, was born in 1794. At this point the Ladd family—originally of English origin but for generations living in Haverhill, Massachusetts—came upon the scene when Daniel Thompson married Persis Matilda Ladd (1793-1879). Their son, William Ladd Thompson (1823-94), Randall's grandfather, married Sarah Bickford Varney (1837-1920), the daughter of Captain Samuel Var¬ney (1796-1875) and after her death Mary Archer (1801-83). William Ladd Thompson, a prominent doctor in Augusta, Maine for many years, purchased a farm on a mountain in Vienna (pronounced “Vy-enny” by locals), Maine called Scratch ‘n Scrabble where the family gathered during the summer. Their son, Daniel Varney Thompson, Randall's father, married Grace Bright¬man Randall in Augusta, Maine on September 5, 1893.

    RANDALL THOMPSON'S FATHER AND MOTHER

    Born in Augusta, Maine on May 10, 1867, D. V. Thompson, belonged to a family with strong ties to that city. His brother Frederic Lincoln Thompson and sister Mary E. Thompson (Aunt Mary [Mollie]), were also both born there. “Uncle Fritz” was chairman of Amherst's History Department, and Mollie, a nurse, maintained her own nursing home in Boston.

    Daniel Varney Thompson's description of his early years and career up to 1923, entitled “Annals of a Schoolmaster,” sheds important light on a ca¬reer that had a considerable impact on the education of his three sons.

  • Chapter XVIII - Recapitulation and Coda

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 923-936

  • Summary

    We have here a composer who dares to write with a simplicity that often

    startles his colleagues. He rides eloquently through the

    present in the fine stagecoach of our ancestors.

    (Quincy Porter)

    … with the simplest means you achieve the most powerful effects.

    (Ralph Berkowitz)

    The musician who knows only music is pitiful… .

    (Randall Thompson)

    Thompson occasionally joked about his birth year remarking: “I was born in 1899 and Aaron Copland in 1900. That makes me a 19th-century composer.” For most of his career, he swam steadily against the tide of atonality, serial¬ism, electronic music, and other avant-garde manifestations that preoccupied so many of his 20th century contemporaries. This is not to say, however, that he was ignorant of such trends, that he did not admire some compos¬ers whose works used them, or that he failed to champion the performance of contemporary music of all types. Let us not forget, for example, that while in Rome during 1924-25 Thompson had flirted with astringent dis-sonances and rhythmic complexities influenced by Italian composers such as Malipiero and Casella with whose compositions he had come in contact. Simply put, in his own compositions once he returned to the United States in 1925, he consciously chose “the road not taken” by so many composers of his own generation. His position endeared him to some while inviting the disapproval of others.

    As early as November 28, 1926 he commiserated with Leopold Mannes: “League last night and Guild [of Composers] tonight. Do you suppose we’ll ever get anything played at one of those concerts, Leo? I wish I thot that I had it in me to write a piece for 6 instr.s, 6 meas. long, such as was played last night!” For Thompson, who was thoroughly schooled in musical literature of the past and equally cognizant of that of his own time, the rhythmic, harmonic, and textural complexities and innovations that gained notoriety for many composers in the twentieth century, and which occupied so much of the ink spilled by critics and analysts, became foreign to his compositional style. His compositions, however, could not be mistaken for works of a previous century: the anthem Fare Well, for example, abounds in consecutive parallel fifths and successions of unresolved seventh chords, both of which would have incurred the ire of renaissance and baroque theorists.

  • Chapter XII - The University of Virginia (Fall 1941-Spring 1945)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 485-544

  • Summary

    Virginia, Earth's only paradise

    (Michael Drayton)

    SEARCH FOR A NEW POSITION (SPRING-SUMMER 1941)

    Once President Bok's decision had been communicated, Thompson realized that a peaceful separation was more advantageous for his career than a protracted, bitter struggle. With Europe at war and with a wife and four children under the age of fourteen, he worried about finding employment before the fall 1941 academic term commenced. After the news of his resignation became public, and having consulted friends, he investigated several opportunities: primarily one at Harvard, the other at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Moreover, Bronson asked whether Thompson had any interest in returning west if such were possible. There was even an unsolicited overture from the University of Minnesota.

    First, Thompson inquired of Woodworth, then Chairman of the Harvard Department of Music, about a possible appointment there. Discussion must have taken place during his February 7-8, 1941 trip to Cambridge for Visiting Committee meetings. Thanking Woodworth on February 11th he wrote:

    I look back on our weekend w[ith] deep satisfaction and a keen sense of gratitude. You were so generous w[ith] yr time, thought, and hospitality. Come what may, I shall not forget this.

    As I review the situation, I am more than ever convinced that what is perforce the most that Harvard might do, is, as it happens, most perfectly suited (in nature & scope) to what I most want to do and be. Even if our plan does not work out, I shall always appreciate yr share in it; and if it does, it will make me very happy. Remember that the actual size of the figure is not of paramount importance. I only hope that [illegible name] & Forbes are right & that you will not find matters difficult. As a member of the Visit¬ing Committee, I’d far rather lighten yr burdens than add to them. Perhaps in the end I’ll be able to! I hope so.

    Woodworth updated Thompson on February 20th writing in part: “I regret the long silence, but I assure you we have not been inactive. There have been consultations with the Dean and he in turn is occupied in taking up the ques¬tion with the authorities in the University… .” Five days later their commu¬nications crossed. Thompson notified Woodworth by telegram that another job possibility had arisen.

  • Chapter X - Curtis Institute of Music: The Hiring Process (Spring and Summer 1939)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 401-428

  • Summary

    To hand down through contemporary masters

    the great traditions of the past.

    To teach students to build

    on this heritage for the future.

    (Purpose of the Curtis Institute at the time)

    CURTIS IN 1939

    During the late 1930s Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music (C.I.M.), founded by Mary Louise Curtis Bok in 1924, went through a rough patch that was not unlike the one that ended Randall's two-year tenure as Director of the Institute in June 1941. Josef Hofmann (1876-1957), who had headed the piano department from C.I.M.'s inception and was its Director from 1927-38, was being eased out of his position by Bok. Gregor Benko and Terry McNeill, who have written about Hofmann's demise as Director, described how it transpired.

    The Institute had been deprived of the Director's guidance for most of the year, and Mary Bok and the other Board members managed the school while he was away. Her annual President's report dated 13 June 1938 stat¬ed that “it became evident in early spring that a drastic curtailment of our expenditures would have to be made.” She reported that she decided to make several changes, among them the reduction of the number of weeks in the school year, the reorganization of some departments and the drop-ping of others entirely as well as a minimal salary cut for non-faculty staff members, and a much higher cut for the faculty, and the introduction of a new policy that provided little or no financial aid for students. The report was apparently a sham, insinuating as it did that there had been fiscal mis¬management and shoddy executive planning… .

    The device the Boks used was an offer for him to continue as Director, but with most of his artistic policies dismantled and his salary less than half of the previous year.

    Under these circumstances, and when no solution presented itself, Hofmann tendered his resignation on September 26, 1938. Then, after summarily re¬jecting Bok's effort to retain him as a piano instructor on an hourly basis, he moved his family to California where he eventually suffered a mental break¬down. Bok quickly saw to the removal of virtually every material vestige of Hofmann's lengthy association with the Institute. The account of his resigna¬tion contained in her President's Report to the Board of Directors on June 1, 1939, therefore seems rather ingenuous.

  • Chapter XIV - Return of a Favored Son: Harvard University (Fall 1948-Spring (1957)

  • Elizabeth K. Schmidt, Carl B. Schmidt, John Graziano
  • Book:
    The Road Not Taken
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 May 2020
    Print publication:
    18 June 2018, pp 573-672

  • Summary

    Welcome home say I with all my heart!

    (Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe)

    HARVARD BECKONS THOMPSON HOME

    Harvard's invitation for Thompson to join its faculty was made with due consideration of the Music Department's needs and a careful look at a candidate pool winnowed over months to three finalists. Having met regularly during fall 1947 to discuss issues regarding an appointment, senior members of the Department authorized A. Tillman Merritt to forward their recommendation to Provost Paul H. Buck on January 15, 1948.

    After many meetings in the fall months, at which the problem[s] of the future development of the Department of Music were discussed and carefully weighed, a final meeting was held on Monday, January 12, 1948 by the senior members of the Department for the purpose of selecting for recommendation to the Administration of Harvard College a candidate for the permanent post of Professor of Music. The meeting was attended by Professors Davison, Piston, Woodworth and Merritt.

    At this meeting it was voted unanimously and enthusiastically to rec¬ommend Professor Randall Thompson of Princeton University for the new post.

    In view of the fact that the Music Department at Harvard have en¬deavored increasingly to stress the vital importance of the combination of knowing and doing, of scholarship and practical musicianship, it has been surprisingly difficult, even after prolonged investigation and inquiry, to find more than a very few men who measure up to the standards that we have set ourselves in connection with this recommendation. We have found it easy to name excellent scholars; but most of them are lacking in practical musicianship. There are great numbers of practical musicians; but they are mostly lacking in musical knowledge, not to mention their lack of apprecia¬ tion and understanding of the place among the humanities and arts which music occupies in a liberal arts college such as Harvard.

    The Music Department consider that the candidate for this permanent post should have the following qualifications: wide cultural background, practical musicianship, scholarly knowledge, the regular production of cre¬ative work, extended experience in successful teaching and intellectual in¬dependence and curiosity. We believe that Randall Thompson has all these qualifications in a combination singularly suited to the needs of this Depart¬ment.

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