The Road Not Taken: A Documented Biography of Randall Thompson by Carl B. Schmidt and Elizabeth K. Schmidt

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Road Not Taken: A Documented Biography of Randall Thompson by Carl B. Schmidt and Elizabeth K. Schmidt Brian Cockburn The Road Not Taken: A Documented Biography of Randall Thompson. By Carl B. Schmidt and Elizabeth K. Schmidt. (American Music and Musicians Series, no. 6.) Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2018. [xli, 1057 p. ISBN 9781576473085 (hardcover), $92.] Bibliographical references, illustrations, tables, index. [End Page 585] Randall Thompson's influence on American music is unquestioned yet rarely acknowledged. Like many musicians, he lived a multifaceted professional life—as researcher, administrator, teacher, conductor, and accompanist, as well as composer. Thompson taught at Wellesley College, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Virginia, Princeton University, and Harvard University; his students included such eventual luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Adler, and Leo Kraft. Beginning 1 August 1932, he was employed to direct a study examining the state of college music education. Though the subsequent report was instrumental in reshaping these music programs across the United States, modern educators underestimate his influence. His compositions span most genres, and he was recognized as a particularly important composer of choral music, as his informal title "dean of American choral composers" attests (back cover). Still, even seasoned choral conductors can rarely name more than a handful of his works. The published writings on Thompson are far from satisfactory. The small group of theses and dissertations focus primarily on his choral compositions, and the surprisingly meager number of journal articles concentrate mostly on his choral output. Prior to the work at hand, Randall Thompson: A Bio-Bibliography by Caroline Cepin Benser and David Francis Urrows (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991) was arguably the best monographic biographical treatment of Thompson. Other notable publications include "The Choral Music of Randall Thompson," a special issue of American Choral Review (vol. 16, no. 4 [1974]: 1–62), with contributions by Elliot Forbes, James Haar, Alfred Mann, and Thompson himself, and Randall Thompson: A Choral Legacy (Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1983), a set of essays by Thompson and others edited by Mann. Yet, for most, Thompson's life is only vaguely known. Fortunately, Carl B. Schmidt, who like Thompson is himself a performer, conductor, teacher, researcher, and administrator, has undertaken what he describes as his "Randall Thompson Project" (p. xxxvi). His past work resulted in a number of significant monographs, including catalogs that established the numbering systems for each composer's works: The Music of Georges Auric: A Documented Catalogue in Four Volumes (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon, 2013) and The Music of Francis Poulenc (1899–1963): A Catalogue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Schmidt's first Thompson book, The Story of Randall Thompson's Alleluia Revisited: A Facsimile Edition with Commentary (Boston: ECS, 2010), chronicles the creation of one of the world's most beloved sacred American choral works. With his wife, Elizabeth K. Schmidt, he published a catalog of Thompson's music (The Music of Randall Thompson [1899–1984]: A Documented Catalogue [Fenton, MO: E. C. Schirmer, 2014]). The work under review, the authors' most recent book, is surprisingly the first full-length biography of Thompson. For the two authors, these three volumes on Thompson and his work appear to be as much a product of devotion as a remarkable scholarly achievement. The present work is an imposing monograph of almost 1,100 pages divided into eighteen chapters. The most expensive book to date in Pendragon Press's American Music and Musicians Series, it has breadth and depth equal to any. Important to note because of its size: this volume has a solid yet flexible binding that has held up well to significant abuse. One can open the volume [End Page 586] to any page and expect it to stay open and lie flat. The Schmidts begin their preface with a quote from Thompson: "I'm glad I've done more than compose. The other jobs make composing more interesting" (p. xxxi, quoting from Mary Channing Stokes, "Profile: Randall Thompson," Harvard Crimson, 5 June 1950). The authors' organization, liberal use of primary sources, and sensitive prose serve to illustrate Thompson's statement. Each chapter covers a short segment of time in Thompson's life. Most chapters cover two to four...