daron aric hagen

When first we met, Virgil Thomson looked like a crazed space creature, sitting in his wing chair, plucking alternately at the squealing hearing aids in his ears and squinting at me like a swashbuckler as he quizzed me about my background. His belt was wrapped around what had to be his chest; his chin seemed to stop where his tummy began. He was shaped like the illustrations of Tik-tok in L. Frank Baum’s books. When, a few weeks earlier, Ned had told me that his teacher was looking for someone to do some orchestrating for him, I had pounced on the opportunity. ‘But you’ll have to submit to an interview,’ said Ned. ‘No promises.’

It was a humid August afternoon sometime during the eighties. I had come back by bus from the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, to interview for the job. I was hot and tired, broke and cocky. To the left of the front doors of the grand old Chelsea Hotel hung a plaque on which were listed the names of former residents – some of the greatest artists of the twenties and thirties. At the bottom of the plaque, someone had scratched ‘and Sid Vicious!’ with a knife.

‘So what’s it like being a young composer these days?’ he shrieked. ‘Where do you get your money?’ he continued, not waiting for me to answer. I leant forward in my chair, clasped my hands together in what I hoped was the picture of earnestness, and rolled out some sort of answer. I don’t think he heard me. The ear pieces started up again, this time on different pitches. He batted his ears. I winced. He turned his head just so and they were both silenced. ‘I know all about being a young composer,’ he shouted, triumphantly. ‘It’s all about optimizing your leisure time!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What’s that? Call me Mr. Thomson, or Virgil. Or boss,’ he finished. Now his eyes were twinkling.

‘Okay, boss.’

‘No, I don’t like that. Stick to Mr. Thomson.’

‘Okay!’ I shouted.

‘What was it like studying with Ned?’ he asked, suddenly in a normal tone of voice.

‘Wonderful,’ I shouted. ‘Great!’ I gave a ‘thumbs up.’

‘You don’t have to shout!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not deaf, you know! Okay. Right,’ he barreled on. ‘Look, I have some piano pieces I want you to orchestrate, and some orchestra pieces I want you to turn into piano pieces. Plus, I need you to do a piano reduction of Louisiana Story. Can you do that?’

I was hired, and worked for Virgil for six or seven months. He wanted to supervise my work, he said; consequently, I was to bring my gear to the Chelsea and do all of the work at the table in his living room. I don’t recall that he ever asked to see what I had done, or that he ever demanded a single change, and I can’t honestly say that I remember a note of what I did. He was exceedingly kind to me, and treated me in a comradely fashion, like a younger colleague who, as he would say, was ‘on the make.’ Lineage means a lot to me, so I was proud that Ned had taken orchestration lessons from Virgil in the same room forty years earlier. There were three great things about the job: one, I got to listen as he conducted business on the telephone from his bed in the next room; two, I received a guided tour of his art collection; and three, I got to ask questions and to hear lots of terrific stories.