Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Foreword: “The Glowing of Such Fire”—A Tribute to Ralph Kirkpatrick
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Family
- Part Two Friends, Colleagues, and Other Correspondence
- 2 Nadia Boulanger
- 3 Alexander Mackay-Smith
- 4 Wanda Landowska
- 5 John Challis
- 6 Serge Koussevitzky
- 7 Oliver Strunk
- 8 Roger Sessions
- 9 Harold Spivacke
- 10 Steinway & Sons
- 11 New York Times
- 12 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
- 13 John Kirkpatrick
- 14 Alexander Schneider
- 15 Otto Luening
- 16 Donald Boalch
- 17 John Hamilton
- 18 Thornton Wilder
- 19 Lincoln Kirstein
- 20 Arthur Mendel
- 21 Edward Steuremann
- 22 Frank Martin
- 23 Olin Downes
- 24 Albert Fuller
- 25 Elliott Carter
- 26 Quincy Porter
- 27 Vincent Persichetti
- 28 Henry Cowell
- 29 Mel Powell
- 30 Bengt Hambraeus
- 31 Alec Hodson
- 32 Paul Fromm
- 33 Wolfgang Zuckermann
- 34 Kenneth Gilbert
- 35 Mr. and Mrs. George Young
- 36 Colin Tilney
- 37 Oliver Daniel
- 38 Eliot Fisk
- 39 Wilton Dillon
- 40 William Dowd
- 41 Meredith Kirkpatrick
- Afterword: Lessons with Kirkpatrick
- Appendixes
18 - Thornton Wilder
from Part Two - Friends, Colleagues, and Other Correspondence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Foreword: “The Glowing of Such Fire”—A Tribute to Ralph Kirkpatrick
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Family
- Part Two Friends, Colleagues, and Other Correspondence
- 2 Nadia Boulanger
- 3 Alexander Mackay-Smith
- 4 Wanda Landowska
- 5 John Challis
- 6 Serge Koussevitzky
- 7 Oliver Strunk
- 8 Roger Sessions
- 9 Harold Spivacke
- 10 Steinway & Sons
- 11 New York Times
- 12 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
- 13 John Kirkpatrick
- 14 Alexander Schneider
- 15 Otto Luening
- 16 Donald Boalch
- 17 John Hamilton
- 18 Thornton Wilder
- 19 Lincoln Kirstein
- 20 Arthur Mendel
- 21 Edward Steuremann
- 22 Frank Martin
- 23 Olin Downes
- 24 Albert Fuller
- 25 Elliott Carter
- 26 Quincy Porter
- 27 Vincent Persichetti
- 28 Henry Cowell
- 29 Mel Powell
- 30 Bengt Hambraeus
- 31 Alec Hodson
- 32 Paul Fromm
- 33 Wolfgang Zuckermann
- 34 Kenneth Gilbert
- 35 Mr. and Mrs. George Young
- 36 Colin Tilney
- 37 Oliver Daniel
- 38 Eliot Fisk
- 39 Wilton Dillon
- 40 William Dowd
- 41 Meredith Kirkpatrick
- Afterword: Lessons with Kirkpatrick
- Appendixes
Summary
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was an American novelist and playwright who explored the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two additional Pulitzers for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. The work of this versatile artist—he was also a successful adaptor and translator, a librettist, actor, lecturer, teacher, and screenwriter—is still widely read and produced today. Thornton Wilder and RK were personal friends.
April 7, 1949
Dear Ralph,
Very proud, very pleased that you got pleasure from the book.
And very glad to hear that you got it while you were progressing on with your own. My expectation of yours is very lively, renewed by the fact that when I was in Madrid in January, I looked in the telephone book and saw the same scarlatti and then heard of your fabulous call from Prof. Starkie too. I also dug out a piece of research treasure while I was in Madrid, a shining bit of new information about Lope de Vega, right from under the insufficiently flair'd nose of the greatest of living Lopistas.
Yes, I am coming to New York and for a whole week. It will be the week of April 25. (I'm doing an explication of a page or two of Finnegans Wake for the Joyce Society at the Grolier Club … one of those nights still unsettled … would that amuse you?)
I've long since emerged from my ignorance, the saying to you that Scarlatti seemed to me abstract patterns often governed by almost digitally-prompted combinations. I now recognize almost the opposite is true. I never mind confessing ignorance, in fact, I enjoy it.
Cordially ever,
Thornton
February 9, 1954
Dear Ralph,
Just bowled over by so much beauty—so much solely musical beauty. Even in great quartet-playing I don't get the feeling of being so much in confrontation with “musica y sola musica” (this is the slogan of an excellent broadcasting program in Havana).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ralph KirkpatrickLetters of the American Harpsichordist and Scholar, pp. 107 - 109Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014