American pioneer

Your Composer of the Month feature on Aaron Copland (September) was excellent, but it neglected an important influence on the development of an ‘American’ sound in his music. That was the work of Copland’s contemporary Virgil Thomson, who first showed how vernacular elements could be woven into orchestral writing. In works such as Symphony on a Hymn Tune (1928), music for the documentaries The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937), the ballet Filling Station (1937) and, later, the score for the poetic film Louisiana Story (1948), he assimilated into his music a range of traditional and popular songs and dances, grass-roots regional music, especially from the American West and Midwest, and Cajun bayous. From all of these, he prepared self-sufficient orchestral suites for concert use. It does not diminish from Copland’s achievement in producing his own ‘Americana’ style to acknowledge how much he learned from Thomson, whose own music deserves greater attention.

John W Barker, Madison, Wisconsin, US