Anthony Tommasini

Anthony Carl Tommasini was born in Brooklyn, New York on 14 April 1948.[1][lower-alpha 1] He grew up in a family of five in Malverne on Long Island, New York.[3][4] Though his parents were not musically inclined, Tommasini was interested in classical music from a young age.[5] Beginning piano lessons in his youth, at 16 years of age he won a piano competition at The Town Hall in Manhattan, performing a Mozart concerto.[6] From age 15 on, he regularly attended the Metropolitan Opera, with operas by Puccini being particular favorites.[4] Other impressionable performances included Joan Sutherland as Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; Birgit Nilsson as the title role of Puccini's Turandot; Renata Tebaldi as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème; and Leontyne Price as the title role of Verdi's Aida.[6] From his teens, Tommasini also cites a performance of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring as particularly inspirational.[7] He was a fan of the pianist Rudolf Serkin, whose recitals he frequently attended, and was overwhelmed by Igor Stravinsky conducting the Symphony of Psalms at the Lincoln Center.[8] A graduate of Saint Paul's School in Garden City, New York,[9] Tommasini studied piano with Donald Currier at Yale University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts (1970) and a Master of Music (1972).[1] He subsequently earned a Doctor of Musical Arts (1982) from Boston University, during which he studied with the pianist Leonard Shure.[1] A decade later, he won the 1998 Boston University School of Music Distinguished Alumni Award.[6]

Based in Boston, Tommasini taught music at Emerson College from 1978 to 1986, and also led nonfiction writing workshops at Wesleyan University and Brandeis University.[1] At Emerson, he met the composer Virgil Thomson in 1985, and Thomson became both a friend and mentor.[10] Tommasini published a survey of Thomson's piano music, Virgil Thomson's Musical Portraits (1986),[11] which was a revision and expansion of his 1982 DMA dissertation.[12] He was denied tenure at Emerson College, as the college eliminated his position; Tommasini later noted that although disappointing, "the best thing that ever happened to me was not getting tenure at Emerson, or I might still be there, and none of [my future criticism career] would've happened".[10] In response, Tommasini turned to music criticism.[10] He was a freelancer, and wrote for The Boston Globe for a decade, beginning in 1986.[6]

Tommasini became a staff writer for The New York Times in 1996, and was promoted to chief classical music critic in 2000.[6] In addition to Thomson, his mentors include Richard Dyer, who was the Boston Globe's classical music critic for 33 years.[6] Tommasini stepped down from his post in 2021; with a 21 year tenure he has been chief classical music critic of The New York Times for the longest period since Olin Downes.[2][lower-alpha 2] In April 2022, music critic Zachary Woolfe was named Tommasini's successor as chief classical music critic for the Times.[14]

Tommasini is the author of Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle,[15] which received the 1998 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, and Opera: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best Recordings.[16][12] Also a pianist, Tommasini made two recordings of music by Virgil Thomson for Northeastern Records, Portraits and Self-Portraits and Mostly About Love: Songs and Vocal Works.[12] Both were funded through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.[12]

Tommasini lives on Central Park West in Manhattan, New York City with his husband Ben McCommon, who is a psychiatrist.[6][8] After his leave from the Times at the end of 2021, Tommasini said he might return to teaching, and that he has two further book ideas.[7]

Books

• Tommasini, Anthony (1986). Virgil Thomson’s Musical Portraits. New York: Pendragon Press.[17][18]
• —— (1997). Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.[19][20]
• —— (2004). The New York Times Essential Library: Opera: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best Recordings. New York: Times Books.
• —— (2018). The Indispensable Composers: A Personal Guide. New York: Penguin Press.[21][22][23]

Articles

• Tommasini, Anthony (Spring 1984). "The Musical Portraits by Virgil Thomson". The Musical Quarterly. 70 (2): 234–247. JSTOR 742212.
• —— (8 February 1988). "Who'll Take Him To 'the Other Side'?". The New York Times.
• —— (11 February 1996). "THEATER; A Composer's Death Echoes in His Musical". The New York Times.
• —— (17 March 1996). "THEATHER; The Seven-Year Odyssey That Led to 'Rent'". The New York Times.
• —— (22 October 2006). "A Lamentation on the Dearth of Divas". The New York Times.
• —— (6 September 2007). "Italian operatic artistry at its finest". The New York Times.
• —— (9 September 2007). "Next-Gen Conductors Ready for New York". The New York Times.
• —— (11 October 2010). "Joan Sutherland, Flawless Soprano, Is Dead at 83". The New York Times.
• —— (21 January 2011). "The Greatest Composers – A Top Ten List". The New York Times.
• —— (20 July 2011). "Music of the Spheres". The New York Times.
• —— (24 September 2017). "Conveying Sounds Through Words: The Classical Music Critic's Challenge". The New York Times.
• —— (16 July 2020). "To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions". The New York Times.
• —— (15 August 2021). "Glimmerglass Creates Magic in Its Own Backyard". The New York Times.
• —— (19 September 2021). "The New York Philharmonic Returns, in the Midst of Transitions". The New York Times.
• —— (17 December 2021). "What Shouldn't Change About Classical Music". The New York Times.
• —— (4 January 2022). "My First Times Byline: Anthony Tommasini". The New York Times.

• Ceriani, Davide (2016) [2013]. "Tommasini, Anthony". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2289585. Retrieved 3 December 2021. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Seligson, Susan (Winter–Spring 2011). "The Case for New" (PDF). Bostonia. No. 116. pp. 22–26.

• "Anthony Tommasini collected news and commentary". The New York Times.
• Anthony Tommasini on Twitter
• Four part interview "Musical Moments" interview with Anthony Tommasini
  • Part 1: Chopin on YouTube
  • Part 2: Mahler on YouTube
  • Part 3: Two Operas on YouTube
  • Part 4: Stravinsky on YouTube