I vowed to become fully conversant in the life and work of Virgil Thomson after attending an ambitious concert dedicated to the Kansas City native at Helzberg Hall in 2011. There just hasn’t been enough time. There’s never enough time. I read only 50 pages of Music Chronicles 1940-1954 when I borrowed the 1,177 page collection of Thomson’s music criticism from a library earlier this year. Monadnock Music’s Complete Chamber Works, a 160-minute set billed as “the first recording of the complete chamber works by Pulitzer Prize winner Virgil Thomson on one album,” was released on December 3. The inclusion of three “world premiere recordings” is also notable. My woefully untrained ears hear Complete Chamber Works as a mixed bag. Relatively conventional works including String Quartet No. 1 don’t move me. Yet the release is sprinkled with ingratiatingly peculiar pieces such as “A Portrait of Georges Hugnet” that sound as if they could have been composed yesterday. Further investigation would undoubtedly provide commensurate rewards. Based on my pitiful track record, it’s unlikely to happen.
