โ Scribed by Frederik Prausnitz
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
For more than half of his long life, composer Roger Sessions was a commanding figure on the American musical scene. He enjoyed the solid respect of his peers, and as a teacher of a generation of composers and author of compelling writings on his craft, his influence on musical thought remains profound. Yet, even in his lifetime, his music endured vastly disrespectful neglect. He was a "difficult" composer. Sessions was well aware of it. In a New York Times article, he wrote, "I have sometimes been told that my music is 'difficult' for the listener. There are those who consider this as praise, those who consider it a reproach. For my part I regard it as, in itself, neither one or the other...it is the way the music comes, the way it has to come." The way Sessions's music "had to come" is a recurrent focus of this biography. As the story is told, often in the composer's own words, the complex picture emerges of a remarkable man who, gradually and not very willingly, learned to accept his unexpected lot as a "difficult" composer. Frederik Prausnitz, an acquaintance of Sessions and conductor of his work, combines personal and musical insights to present this fascinating portrait of an influential, yet often overlooked, modernist composer.
CONTENTS......Page 14
INTRODUCTION......Page 18
1 The Matriarch......Page 22
2 The Consort......Page 35
3 Young Roger......Page 40
4 Letters from Harvard......Page 51
5 Ernest Bloch......Page 72
6 Berenson......Page 92
7 The Musical Idea I......Page 106
8 Summer of 1929......Page 118
9 Berlin Interlude......Page 136
10 Home......Page 152
11 Sea Change......Page 166
12 Something More......Page 181
13 The Musical Idea II......Page 187
14 Teacher......Page 199
15 Family, Friends, and Montezuma......Page 215
16 Berkeley......Page 229
17 Dallapiccola......Page 248
18 The Musical Idea III......Page 264
19 Harvest......Page 286
APPENDIX 1 Overview......Page 310
APPENDIX 2 Musical Terms......Page 318
APPENDIX 3 Ernest Bloch Notes, 1925......Page 319
NOTES......Page 322
SOURCES......Page 342
B......Page 354
C......Page 355
D......Page 356
F......Page 357
H......Page 358
L......Page 359
M......Page 360
P......Page 361
S......Page 362
V......Page 366
Z......Page 367
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