RON HENGGELER

The late afternoon sunlight illuminates a portion of the hallway near my front door.

A sunrise from my window in early August

Jazz sleeping at the window in the round room

Virgil Thomson in the early to mid 80's

A photo of me around the time that I first met Virgil Thomson

The photo was taken by my friend Kurt Buser

I first met Virgil Thomson in a dream. That's how our friendship began. At the time, I was reading "Everybody Who Was Anybody" by Janet Hothouse. I fell asleep one night (literally with my face in the pages) while reading the book at the place where a young Virgil collaborates with Gertrude Stein and writes the score to her Opera, FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS. It became a smash hit on Broadway and made them international sensations.

In the dream, I met Virgil Thomson at a party, and the dream was so powerful and vivid that when I woke from it, I turned on a light and wrote down several pages of rough notes describing what I had just seen.

Four Saints in Three Acts, 1934

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXINp5iuUyw

I spent the next several days polishing and re-writing the dream description.

A recent TIME magazine had written an article about Virgil being the last of the great 20th century American composers, and the article included a photograph of Virgil standing at the front of the Chelsea Hotel in New York City.

I called New York, got the address of the hotel, and eventually mailed my hand-written description to Virgil Thomson. A week or so later, I received a postcard from Virgil saying that he was delighted with the story I'd sent him. He added that he would be visiting San Francisco in the summer. That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted 11 years until he passed away in 1989.

August sunrise from my window

Late afternoon sunlight on the gas heater

Jazz sleeping at the window in the round room

Gizmo and Jazz stalking a noisy crow on the other side of the round room window

Mark Anstendig and Virgil Thomson in the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco

At the time, Virgil Thomson wrote in an article for Parnassus: Poetry in Review:

"The Anstendig Institute, music-acoustical investigators in San Francisco, makes the definitive statement about music's role in general:

Music is the highest, most powerful, most overriding, of all the arts. In the presence of music, all the other arts take on the character of the music, not vice versa, and it is capable of, and can produce in us, the finest, most delicate, of possible human reactions.

Mark Anstendig in the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco

http://www.anstendig.com

http://www.anstendig.org

At the time of these Garden Court Palace photos, Mark Anstendig and an associate of his, Mitch Cotter, were consulting with San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall trying to remedy the poor acoustics inside the hall. Virgil mentioned the hanging panels called "Floating Clouds" by Alexander Calder at the Aula Magna in Venezuela.

Mark and Virgil were good friends and shared much in common. They had both studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Fontainebleau. Mark had studied conducting with Jean Morel at Julliard and Thomson was an avid fan of Morel.

The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge seen from Fulton and 34th Avenue

I shot over 500 photos of Virgil in the years that I knew him.

Most are now with the Virgil Thomson Collection in the Reinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

This photo is from the original 1934 production on Broadway in New York.

Here's a slice of the opera by Mark Morris' Four Saints in Three Acts [Overture]

I saw this in Berkeley years ago and it was absolutely enchanting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKKWfbweeMw

Virgil, visited San Francisco each summer, usually staying for two weeks with his friends on Waller Street near the Haight.

 

 

 

Jazz sleeping behind the monitor while I was working on my Virgil Thomson photos.

The Plow That Broke The Plains - 1937 Farming Educational Documentary - WDTVLIVE42

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DRP7KxjFXQ

My photo of Virgil Thomson was used for the CD cover MOSTLY ABOUT LOVE

A photo of me working on a poster around the time that I knew Virgil Thomson

http://www.ronhenggeler.com/anstendig_institute_in...

The photo was taken by my friend Kurt Buser

Late in the day sunlight coming in from the skylight at the top of the stairs

August

Working on a poster late 70's or early 80's

To see my work from back then, visit:

http://www.ronhenggeler.com/anstendig_institute_in...

The photo was taken by my friend Kurt Buser

A view of San Francisco seen from the coastal cliffs overlooking Bird Rock and Point Bonita

Mark and Virgil at lunch in the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco

Virgil Thomson: Louisiana Story (1948)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iR5sC3pgC4

On the day I shot a series of photos of Virgil wearing this bow tie and sweater, he wrote a musical portrait of me titled, "Lines For and About Ron Henggeler". The piece he wrote is for piano.

We sat at a table on a back porch overlooking a beautiful garden in the Haight.

I fell asleep with my head in my folded arms and when I woke, he had finished the score.

Looking north on 34th Avenue in San Francisco

The north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge seen from the Conzelman Road near Battery Spencer in the Marin Headlands

The tunnel at Battery 129 on Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands

The view from Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands

The Farallon Islands 26 miles west of San Francisco, seen with a 300mm lens from the coastal cliffs in the Marin Headlands

A distant Point Bonita seen from the Coleman Road near Black Sand Beach in the Marin Headlands

All my photos of Virgil Thomson were taken with a small Olympus XA camera that my parents had given me for Christmas in the mid to late 70's.

Virgil Thomson: The River (1937)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9zPMg8IL3w

Fulton Street in the Avenues at dusk

The historic Point Bonita Lighthouse seen from the Cozelman Road

On the day I shot a series of photos of Virgil wearing this bow tie and sweater, he wrote a musical portrait of me titled, "Lines For and About Ron Henggeler". The piece he wrote is for piano. I have a copy of the score. His original is with the Virgil Thomson Collection in the Reinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

This is Virgil looking through the glass door to the kitchen.

A distant Rodeo Beach and the Rodeo Lagoon seen from the coastal cliff overlooking Bird Rock

The Marin Headlands looking north along the coast

A rusted iron door of World War II Battery Mendell

Friends of Virgil Thomson in Santa Cruz

On the left, Lou Harrison and his partner Bill Colvig (center)

On the far right, Gary Smith and David Ligare

Battery Mendell in the Marin Headlands located near the steep coastal cliffs overlooking Bird Rock

The ruins of the World War II-era Battery Mendell in the Marin Headlands

Point Bonita and the historic Lighthouse as viewed from the steep coastal cliffs overlooking Bird Rock

Setting sunlight with Dave's and my shadows, cast on the edge of the steep coastal cliffs overlooking Bird Rock

American Composers Lou Harrison and Virgil Thomson

 

 

The far-distant Point Reyes as seen from Point Bonita

Bird Rock and the setting sun

After sundown, a glimpsed view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Mendell

 

Looking north to the setting sun and Point Reyes 40 miles away

 

 

 

Ships passing at twilight through the beautiful Golden Gate

Curious Jazz, a mischief-making cat, always getting into something he shouldn't

Virgil Thomson

Last of the great early 20th century American composers