Roger Sessions

Six lectures delivered at the Julliard School of Music, 1949.

Roger Sessions (1896-1985), one of this century's most highly respected American composers, was also a prolific and gifted writer. Besides authoring numerous books, essays, and articles, Sessions carried on lengthy written conversations with such noteworthy composers and musicians as Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Nadia Boulanger, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch, Luigi Dallapiccola, Ernst Krenek, and his student David Diamond. Andrea Olmstead has edited and annotated. More than two hundred of Sessions's letters, as well as letters from his correspondents, covering nearly seventy-five years of the composer's long and productive life, from prep school until his death in 1985. In addition, Olmstead has included thoughtful commentary that places the letters in their context. Sessions's correspondence provides a fascinating firsthand view of music-making in the twentieth century. Among the richest exchanges are the letters between Sessions. And Copland in the late 1920s, when they decided to organize a series of concerts of new music in New York City. The volume also contains previously unpublished letters between Sessions and Thomas Mann on Mann's Dr. Faustus and letters from Ernst Krenek that vividly describe his escape from the Nazis and adjustment to life in America. Until now, many details about Sessions's life and work have been elusive. Here Sessions discusses the range of musical issues that touched. Him personally. His letters also convey much about the nature of the artistic milieu in which he and his colleagues, both in America and abroad, made music. Sessions was a perceptive observer of the passing political scene. His correspondence provides a unique perspective on an important chapter in musical and political history. As Olmstead notes in her introduction, Sessions wrote letters much the way he composed music: "Long sentences are begun, spun out with elaborate. Punctuation, and completed in virtuoso fashion without his crossing out a single word or phrase." He was a gifted stylist who merged beautiful form with thoughtful, and often moving, content. Consequently, The Correspondence of Roger Sessions makes for delightful reading.

In the course of his long career, Roger Sessions came to assume a preëminent position among modern American composers. Until his death in 1985 at the age of 88, Sessions produced a prodigiously varied oeuvre--from large choral and orchestral pieces to chamber music and solo woks--that continues to attract devoted admirers. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, Sessions remained an elusive figure, a deeply private man who drew sharp distinctions between success and accomplishment. Conversations with Roger Sessions offers a rare opportunity to hear this extraordinary composer speak candidly about his life and work, and it provides fresh insight into one of the most exciting chapters in the history of American music. A close friend and colleague of the composer, Andrea Olmstead interviewed Sessions on a weekly basis between 1974 and 1980. Their conversations are delightfully informal and return repeatedly to the subtle ways in which his work has been shaped by personal experience, musical conviction, and the social and political climate of the twentieth century. With urban good humor and occasional irreverence, Sessions discusses his compositions and describes in detail their genesis and development. He also reaffirms his humanistic approach to the music and speaks forthrightly against excessively abstract theoretical approaches. "Just remember," he responds to a question concerning the 12-tone system, "The music is God and the twelve-tone technique is just a parish priest." Sessions also touches on the world of professional music, and on his relations with such luminaries as Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch, Otto Klemperer, Nadia Boulanger, and Igor Stravinsky. He proves himself here to be a superb raconteur whose charming anecdotes consistently surprise and instruct. Sessions tells us, for instance, how his misreading of a poem by James Joyce led to a piece for solo soprano--and an embarrassing encounter with the great writer's daughter-in-law. He also comments wryly on the critical reception of his more controversial works; in another instance he describes an unlikely fistfight between Sarah Caldwell's mother and an unsympathetic concertgoer at the world premiere of Montezuma. Thanks to Andrea Olmstead's skills as an interviewer and editor, Conversations with Roger Sessions can be enjoyed by professional musicians as well as the layman. It is a very special memorial to this singular composer.