Roger SESSIONS is recognized as a giant among American Composers.
It is not that his productivity is gigantic, nor that his compositions
reach superhuman dimensions, but simply that he writes masterpieces,
one after the other. The elements that make them masterful are their
unswerving coherence and their flowing directness within their envelope
of complexity; the lyrical beauty of their spun-out melodies, and — an
element so often found wanting in the music of our time — their inef-
fable sense of importance, of greatness, if you will.
Sessions was born in Brooklyn in 1896 and grew up in Northampton,
Mass. He matured early, entering Harvard at the age of 14 and later
going to Yale to study composition with Horatio Parker. By the time
he was 20, Sessions had won his first award for composition, the Steinert
Prize, and that year began teaching at Smith College. Four years later,
he was studying with, and assisting, Ernest Bloch at the Cleveland In-
stitute of Music, and Bloch took his place at Sessions’ most important
single influence,
In 1926 Sessions won the first of two Guggenheim Fellowships and
moved to Europe where, with the further aid of a Prix de Rome and
a Carnegie Grant, he lived for eight years. In 1935 he began teaching
at Princeton University, remaining there until 1945 when he joined the
faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. In 1953 he returned
to Princeton as William Schubael Conant Professor of Music, a posi-
tion from which he retired in 1964. He continues to teach, however, at
the Juilliard School of Music, in New York.
Despite his fast start on adulthood, Sessions completed few scores in
his early years. In 1923 he composed the incidental music to Andreyev's
play, THE BLACK MASKERS, which was performed at Smith. Five
years later, he had made the music into an orchestral suite, which be-
came a staple of the concert repertoire. In 1927 he finished his SYM-
PHONY NO. 1; in 1930 his PIANO SONATA NO. 1; in 1935 the
VIOLIN CONCERTO recorded here, and, in 1936 his STRING
QUARTET NO. 1.
It has been assumed, therefore, that he composes slowly, but the
fact is just the opposite (he complete his entire opera, THE TRIAL
OF LUCULLUS, in two and a half months); the time-consuming activity
is his painstaking revision, and discarding of parts that do not meet his
standards. The result is the impermeable quality of his counterpoint and
the impression, so often noted by the press, of emotional restraint.
(Actually, there is, especially in these early works, a clear sense of
humanity and even passion that arises from the warm sonorities and
the poignancy of the melodic line.)
Listeners to Sessions’ music have noted a superficial stylistic resem-
blance to the music of Stravinsky but an emotional affinity for the
chromaticism of the Schoenberg school. Sessions resisted the allure of
the Schoenberg's 12-tone techniques for many years, but eventually did
make use of them. The technique employed in his later music has been
described as “total melody,” in which the listener must listen “horizon-
tally® to the melodic relationships within the simultancous lines and to
the sum of the relationships between the lines more particularly than
to the sonorities of harmonic tensions apparent at any given moment.
This, a tendency that was apparent in Sessions’ music long before any-
body put a name to it, has proven to be one of the obstacles to its easy
accessibility, for it runs counter to listening habits built up over almost
two centuries. At the same time, it enhances the very element—expressive
melody—that makes listening to Sessions’ music such a vivid experience.
It is perhaps significant that in the past 30 years, many of Sessions’
honors have come in the form of commissions for compositions rather
than of grants-in-aid. The last six of his seven symphonies were com-
missioned by or for performing organizations, as were 18 of his other
large works. He is, in fact, uncommonly revered by the entire musical
community, which had placed him among the ranks of Old Masters
when he was still a young man.
The VIOLIN CONCERTO is in four movements, the third and fourth
connected without pause by a solo -violin cadenza. Sessions decided 10
prevent undue competition with his solo instrument by eliminating all
violins from his orchestra—the strings include only violas, cellos and
basses. The wind instruments are numerous, however, including three
flutes, one oboe, four clarinets, three bassoons, four horns and double
brasses. When it was written, the VIOLIN CONCERTO was described
as the most difficult that had ever been composed, and some violinists
said it was impossible, It had its premiere, with the composer playing
the accompaniment at the piano and Robert Gross playing the solo
part, in Colorado Springs in 1939; its orchestral premiere was the fol-
lowing year in Chicago with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra under
Izler Solomon and Mr. Gross as soloist. It has since been performed with
increasing frequency, with eight performances during 1966 and 1967
alone.
— Carter Harman
PAUL ZUKOFSKY, at 24, has already had an impressive career as
violinist, teacher and composer, and is at work writing a book on per-
forming contemporary violin music. His performing has won him the
Paganini, Thibaud and Enesco international competitions, the Morris
Loeb Memorial Prize at the Juilliard School of Music and both the
Jascha Heifetz and Albert Spalding prizes at the Berkshire Music Center
in the same year. He has performed the Sessions VIOLIN CONCERTO
at Tanglewood, and has made several other recordings for CRI.
GUNTHER SCHULLER was born in 1925 and started his musical
career as a French horn player. His professional horn playing ended
when, after 15 years with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, he left to
become a full time conductor and composer. As an instrumentalist, he
likes to work with unusual combinations, probably the most famous of
which have been those he used for his “Third Stream” jazz compositions.
This is his second appearance on CRI as conductor.
E. B. Marks Publishing Co. (BMI) ......................29 minutes
This recording was made possible by a grant from The Martha Baird
Rockefeller Fund for Music.
CovER BY JUNE CORWIN HE
WRITE FOR A COMPLETE LISTING OF ALBUMS ON CRI
COMPOSERS RECORDINGS, INC.
CRI 170 West 74th Street, New York, N. Y. 10023
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