The State of Music

A Library of America eBook Classic

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Theory & Criticism, History & Criticism, Reference, Biography & Memoir, Composers & Musicians
Cover of the book The State of Music by Virgil Thomson, Library of America
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Author: Virgil Thomson ISBN: 9781598534757
Publisher: Library of America Publication: October 4, 2016
Imprint: Library of America Language: English
Author: Virgil Thomson
ISBN: 9781598534757
Publisher: Library of America
Publication: October 4, 2016
Imprint: Library of America
Language: English

Virgil Thomson had already established himself as one of the nation's leading composers when he published The State of Music (1939), the book that made his name as a writer and won him a fourteen-year stint as chief music reviewer at the New York Herald Tribune. This feisty, often hilarious polemic, presented here in the extensively revised edition of 1962, surveys the challenges confronting the American composer in a hide-bound world where performance and broadcast outlets are controlled by institutions shocked by the new and suspicious of homegrown talent. For Aaron Copland, The State of Music was not just “the most original book on music that America has produced,” but “the wittiest, the most provocative, the best written.”

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Virgil Thomson had already established himself as one of the nation's leading composers when he published The State of Music (1939), the book that made his name as a writer and won him a fourteen-year stint as chief music reviewer at the New York Herald Tribune. This feisty, often hilarious polemic, presented here in the extensively revised edition of 1962, surveys the challenges confronting the American composer in a hide-bound world where performance and broadcast outlets are controlled by institutions shocked by the new and suspicious of homegrown talent. For Aaron Copland, The State of Music was not just “the most original book on music that America has produced,” but “the wittiest, the most provocative, the best written.”

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