Thomson, Virgil, 1896-

Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 25, 1896. As a boy, he took lessons in piano and organ, and soon found work as a church organist. He attended public schools and then Kansas City Polytechnic Institute, a junior college. In 1917 he enlisted in the Army, but World War I came to an end before he could be sent to Europe.

After his discharge from the military, Thomson attended Harvard, where he sang in the Glee Club and studied with Edward Burlingame Hill and Archibald Davison. His college career was interrupted by a fellowship that enabled him to spend a year in Paris, where he studied counterpoint and organ with Nadia Boulanger, and became a lifelong Francophile. After his Harvard graduation in 1923 and some additional training at the Juilliard School, Thomson moved to Paris, where he befriended many prominent musicians, artists, and writers, including his fellow expatriate Gertrude Stein. She provided the libretto for Thomson's first opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, which created a sensation when it was first performed in 1934. Although it never entered the standard repertory, Four Saints made Thomson a celebrity, and it remains his best-known work to this day.

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