This review from a July 2009 performance by Thomas Hampson and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood tells us that Virgil Thomson's music is still being discovered:

"The seldom performed Thomson songs, to five poems by William Blake, were a real find. Best known as a critic, Thomson ranged in these moving settings from the dramatic in "Tiger! Tiger!" to the poignant in "The Little Black Boy," whose hope for reconciliation between races still rings true today."

A seminal figure in American musical culture of the 20th century, Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) was born in Kansas City. He was among the first generation of Americans to study with Nadia Boulanger. Best known for his operas on texts by Gertrude Stein, Thomson is also known for his film scores The Plough that Broke the Plain and The River.

Thomson began his musical career in his teens, by playing the organ at local churches. In 1919, he enrolled at Harvard to study music with Edward Burlingame Hill, Archibald T. Davison and S. Foster Damon, who acquainted Thomson with the work of Gertrude Stein and Erik Satie, both of whom remained an integral part of his artistic life. After two years, Thomson went to Paris on a Harvard fellowship to study counterpoint and organ with Nadia Boulanger. There, he wrote and published his first music reviews. He returned to the US to graduate from Harvard in 1923 and work as a conductor and organist. Following further studies at Juilliard, he returned to Paris in 1925, residing there until 1940. From this period come his first symphony, Symphony on a Hymn Tune (1928), and the Suite from the filmscore The River (1937).

In 1940, Thomson returned again to the US, where he became music critic for the New York Herald Tribune. He wrote witty, engaging essays and articles, full of frank opinions, in a clear, lively prose style. Thomson continued to write, compose, and lecture with great energy through the 1960's. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1948) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1959). He was also given a Kennedy Center Honor (1983).

The simplicity and charm of Thomson's compositions reflect his great admiration for Satie (he conducted the premiere of Satie's cantata Socrate in the 1920's). In addition to Satie's influence, Thomson draws inspiration from a variety of sources, most notably American hymns, upon which he elaborates in the Symphony on a Hymn Tune and Suite from "The River." Aaron Copland wrote that this latter composition is "a lesson in how to treat Americana."

For the most part, Thomson has used traditional tonal harmony, with occasional dissonant excursions, as in the Five Songs from William Blake for baritone and orchestra (1951). However, Thomson's chord progressions frequently move in an unconventional manner, often into remote key regions, giving the traditional materials new and unusual twists.

Thomson is, without question, one of America's finest composers of vocal music. The opera Lord Byron (1961-68) makes this abundantly clear. This is Thomson's most expansive score, where he has written soaring melodic lines and luxuriant orchestral textures: Lord Byron is a grand capstone to a distinguished compositional career.