In this episode, Dave and Andrew explore the winner of the seventh Pulitzer Prize in Music, Virgil Thomson for his score to the film Louisiana Story.
Virgil Thomson is perhaps best known for his operas like Four Saints in Three Acts or his precise and incisive music criticism at the New York Herald Tribune. But he was also a pioneer in film scoring, particularly documentary film scoring during the Great Depression. In 1936, he wrote his first film score for Pare Lorentz's The Plow that Broke the Plains, and he followed it up with The River two years later for the same director. A decade later, the father of the narrative documentary film, Robert Flaherty, hired Thomson to score what would be his last film. As the only piece of movie music to ever win the Pulitzer, Louisiana Story is at least a curiosity in the prize's history, but does it stand up today?
If you'd like more information about Virgil Thomson we recommend:
Bonus: An Interview with Howard Pollack
Episode 49 - 1991: Shulamit Ran, Symphony
Episode 48 - 1990: Mel Powell, Duplicates
Episode 47 - 1989: Roger Reynolds, Whispers Out of Time
Bonus: An Interview with William Bolcom
Episode 46 - 1988: William Bolcom, Twelve New Etudes
Bonus: An Interview with John Harbison
Episode 45 - 1987: John Harbison, The Flight Into Egypt
Episode 44 - 1986: George Perle, Wind Quintet IV
Episode 43 -1985: Stephen Albert, Symphony RiverRun
Episode 42 - 1984: Bernard Rands, Canti del Sole
Bonus: An Interview with Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Episode 41 - 1983: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Symphony No.1 (Three Movements for Orchestra)
Episode 40 - 1982: Roger Sessions, Concerto for Orchestra
Episode 39 - 1981: No Winner
Episode 38 - 1980: David Del Tredici, In Memory of a Summer Day
Episode 37 - 1979: Joseph Schwantner, Aftertones of Infinity
Episode 36 - 1978: Michael Colgrass, Déjà Vu
Episode 35 - 1977: Richard Wernick, Visions of Terror and Wonder
Episode 34 - 1976: Ned Rorem, Air Music
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