Ira Randall Thompson was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey; but his
forebears and his heart were always in New England. Although born into a
musical family, he was not encouraged to take up music as a profession.
However, as a student at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, he was
engaged as the school's organist.
When Thompson entered Harvard University in 1916, he auditioned for the
Harvard Glee Club, but was rejected by its conductor, Dr. Archibald T.
Davison. Years later, Thompson is reported to have said of this rejection,
"My life has been an attempt to strike back!" Thompson signed up for some of
Davison's music classes and, eventually, Davison became his mentor. Davison
taught Thompson counterpoint and the history of choral music and offered
criticism of Thompson's early efforts in choral composition. But Thompson
was most influenced by Davison's taste, his cultivation of the choral legato
and his adoration of the great choral literature.
In 1922, Thompson won the Damrosch Fellowship to study at the American
Academy in Rome. This resulted in a lifelong friendship with the Italian
people which ultimately lead to a designation in 1959 as the Cavaliere
ufficiale al merito della Reppublica Italiana by the Italian government.
On his return to the United States in 1924, he took up residence in
Greenwich Village, taking on various musical jobs, including that of
composing songs and music for The Straw Hat and Grand Street Follies of 1926,
a witty highbrow revue. In 1927, he married Margaret Quayle Whitney, of
Philadelphia, who proved to be the ideal companion and sustainer of his
ambitions. Her warm and unaffected charm complemented his reserve and
apparent austerity of manner, just as her humor tempered his wit. Their four
children made the household at once boisterous and musical.
That same year, 1927, Thompson was appointed assistant professor of music,
organist, and choir director at Wellesley College, and from then on his
academic and directorial career followed a natural course. He was lecturer
at Harvard, guest conductor of the Dessoff and Madrigal choirs and the
Julliard chorus in New York.
Between 1932 and 1935 he was the chief architect of a survey which
ultimately revolutionized the teaching and performance of music on America's
college campuses. The results of this published study, College Music, 1935,
provided the impetus which started the upward march toward the competence of
today's college choirs.
Guest conducting choruses in New York created the impetus to return to
writing choral music. In 1935 he received a commission from the League of
Composers to write something suitable for college chorus. The result was The
Peaceable Kingdom, a sequence of a cappella choruses, based on selected texts
from the Book of Isaiah. Herewith, Randall Thompson's reputation as a writer
of choral music was firmly established; and a flood of commissions followed
from schools, churches, communities, and ranking musical institutions across
the country, assuring his reputation both nationally and internationally.
In 1939, Thompson was appointed the Director of the Curtis Institute of
music where Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein were among his students and
assistants. Thompson maintained a close personal and professional friendship
with Bernstein, and was often a source of guidance for the younger composer
and conductor. Because of his dislike for the administrative work that
robbed him of time for composing and a long running battle with the
Institute's Board of Directors over curriculum issues, Thompson left Curtis
in 1941 to become the head of the music division of the School of Fine Arts
of the University of Virginia, where he remained until 1946.
In 1945 Thompson was appointed the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music
at Harvard University and in 1965 became Professor Emeritus. Needless to
say, Thompson's "attempt to strike back" was quite successful!
The Last Words Of David Thompson
This work was commissioned in 1949 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in honor
of the 25th anniversary of the directorship of Dr. Serge Koussevitzky. It
uses the words of II Samuel, 23: vs. 3-4 as the text.
He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
And he shall be as the light of the morning,
when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds;
as the tender grass springing out of the earth,
by clear shining after rain.
Alleluia, Amen.
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