Thomson: Remembering an Original

Sotheby’s in New York City has announced the sale of items from the estate of Virgil Thomson. When the late American composer and critic died at age 92 in October of last year, he left his famous apartment at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan filled with furniture, paintings and sculpture.

With the exception of several works by Florine Stettheimer, Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp (to be sold by the auction house at sales Wednesday and Nov. 14 and 29), most of the collection will be on sale at Sotheby’s on Oct. 11. The composer’s manuscripts have been left to Yale University; a few published scores--by Thomson and others--are among the items to be auctioned.

Among the 150 lots in the sale are drawings and books, and photographs by, among others, Man Ray, Editta Sherman, Berenice Abbott, Maurice Grosser, Roddy McDowall, Lee Miller and Betty Freeman.

And there is furniture, including the bed in which much of Thomson’s music is said to have been written; the dining table at which the composer entertained Copland, Cage, Stravinsky and Duchamp, and the kidney-shaped pie-crust table that Alice B. Toklas left Thomson in her will.

Among the miscellaneous items: a black silk brocade vest, made for and worn by Gertrude Stein; 43 volumes of works by Stein, and Thomson’s address book, dating from the 1920s and ‘30s.

In the introduction to the catalogue, Thomson’s friend, the poet and playwright Jack Larson, describes the composer in old age:

“The older I saw him become, the more I saw him as the small boy he must have been in Kansas City, Missouri--smart and intuitive, attention-getting and accomplished, spiritual but sensual, loving, generous yet sometimes selfish, talkative but observant and looking exactly like Virgil had since he was a baby.”

Proceeds from the sale of property from the estate will benefit the Virgil Thomson Foundation, Ltd. The property will be on exhibition at Sotheby’s from Saturday through Oct. 10. Information: (212) 606-7000.

AND COPLAND: The 90th birthday of Thomson’s contemporary and friend, Aaron Copland, will not go unnoticed hereabouts. The School of Music at USC will hold a monthlong Copland celebration, incorporating six programs in nine performances, Nov. 7-Dec. 9.

These programs will survey the composer’s varied output. Copland’s opera, “The Tender Land,” will be performed by USC Opera, Dec. 6-9, closing the celebration. His Third Symphony will be given by the USC Symphony, Daniel Lewis conducting, Nov. 16; chamber music and songs are featured in a Copland faculty recital, Nov. 18; Michele Zukovsky, a principal of the L.A. Philharmonic, will play the Clarinet Concerto with the USC Chamber Orchestra, Nov. 13, eve of the composer’s actual 90th birthday--he was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Nov. 14, 1900.

Among the performers at these programs: Conductors Larry Rachleff, Daniel Lewis, Donald Crockett and Douglas Lowry; violinist Eudice Shapiro, and soprano Janice McVeigh.

Funding these programs is a $36,000 grant from the E. Nakamichi Foundation.

BRIEFLY: Western Opera Theater embarks today on the first leg of its 1990-91 national tour. Between today and Nov. 11, the San Francisco Opera-affiliated touring company will visit communities in 13 states, from California to New Jersey, from Oregon to Massachusetts to Florida. Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” in its first WOT staging--directed by Albert Takazauckas and conducted by Carol I. Crawford--is the opera of choice this season. The California segment of the tour is funded by a major grant of $50,000 from Pacific Telesis Foundation. During the California segment of the winter tour, Jan. 22-Feb. 3, the company will perform in Bakersfield, Claremont, Hayward, Irvine and San Bernardino. . . . The Monday Evening Concert season begins Oct. 1 with a performance by the touring Grupo Encuentros de Musica Contemporanea de Buenos Aires, conducted by artistic director Alicia Terzian. . . . “High Fidelity,” Allan Miller’s film about the Guarneri String Quartet, will play a limited engagement at the Laemmle’s Monica Theater in Santa Monica, Nov. 21-Dec. 6. . . . The Boston Symphony’s 1990 summer season at Tanglewood broke its own attendance record; the new record is 311,533, up from the 1989 figure of 311,501.