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Roger Sessions : How a Difficult Composer Got That Way.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2002Copyright date: ©2002Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (367 pages)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780195355208
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Roger SessionsDDC classification:
  • 780/.92 B
LOC classification:
  • ML410.S473P73 2002
Online resources:
Contents:
Intro -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- 1 The Matriarch -- 2 The Consort -- 3 Young Roger -- 4 Letters from Harvard -- 5 Ernest Bloch -- 6 Berenson -- 7 The Musical Idea I -- 8 Summer of 1929 -- 9 Berlin Interlude -- 10 Home -- 11 Sea Change -- 12 Something More -- 13 The Musical Idea II -- 14 Teacher -- 15 Family, Friends, and Montezuma -- 16 Berkeley -- 17 Dallapiccola -- 18 The Musical Idea III -- 19 Harvest -- APPENDIX 1 Overview -- APPENDIX 2 Musical Terms -- APPENDIX 3 Ernest Bloch Notes, 1925 -- NOTES -- SOURCES -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.
Summary: 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 remainsprofound. 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 aspraise, 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.
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Intro -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- 1 The Matriarch -- 2 The Consort -- 3 Young Roger -- 4 Letters from Harvard -- 5 Ernest Bloch -- 6 Berenson -- 7 The Musical Idea I -- 8 Summer of 1929 -- 9 Berlin Interlude -- 10 Home -- 11 Sea Change -- 12 Something More -- 13 The Musical Idea II -- 14 Teacher -- 15 Family, Friends, and Montezuma -- 16 Berkeley -- 17 Dallapiccola -- 18 The Musical Idea III -- 19 Harvest -- APPENDIX 1 Overview -- APPENDIX 2 Musical Terms -- APPENDIX 3 Ernest Bloch Notes, 1925 -- NOTES -- SOURCES -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.

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 remainsprofound. 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 aspraise, 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.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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