(1896-1985)
BIOGRAPHY
Roger Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 28, 1896 and died March 16, 1985 in New York City. He entered Harvard University at the age of 14, graduating at age 18. During these four years Sessions wrote numerous articles for the Harvard Musical Review and became its editor. This was the start of his decades-long career as a writer on music. His articles dealt with some of the most important recent music of the time. This was followed by study with Horatio Parker at Yale (previously the teacher of Charles Ives) and with Ernst Bloch. At age 20 he began a lengthy teaching career, winning his first job at Smith College. The Black Maskers, one of Sessions’ most often heard works, was composed for a performance at Smith College.
In 1925 Sessions began a European sojourn of eight years. He received two Guggenheim fellowships, a Prix de Rome and in 1931 a Carnegie Corporation grant. He and his wife Barbara lived primarily in Florence and Rome; in 1931 they moved to Berlin. Sessions also traveled extensively in Europe and met some of the luminaries of the era, such as Alban Berg. During this time he co-founded the legendary Copland-Sessions new music concerts. Sessions left Europe in 1933, shortly after the Nazi takeover of Germany. Works written during this period include the first piano sonata, the Symphony No. 1, the Three Chorale Preludes for organ, and a large part of the Concerto for Violin.
A year after his return from Europe, Sessions took up a post at Princeton University, beginning a continuous teaching career of nearly 50 years. During his years at Princeton his reputation as a composer began to develop, and there were more performances of his works. In addition to the completion of the violin concerto, his compositions from this period include the First String Quartet, the piano set From my Diary, the Duo for Violin and Piano, and much of the second symphony.
In 1946 Sessions moved to the University of California at Berkeley, where he remained for eight years. This marked the beginning of an extremely fertile period. The list of works completed over the next twenty-five years includes, among others, six of his nine symphonies, the Quintet for strings, the second and third Piano Sonatas, the Concerto for Piano, and his only opera, Montezuma.
In 1953, while starting composition of his Sonata for Violin, Sessions "realized" that he was writing twelve-tone music. For most of the next 30 years, Sessions composed in a free application of this system, of which he had once been profoundly suspicious. The hallmark of this development was its organic quality, in which Sessions evolved gradually toward the idiom, and finally adopted it seamlessly into his musical language.
In 1954 Sessions returned to Princeton University. In 1965, after his "retirement" from teaching, Sessions took up an appointment at the Juilliard School which he maintained, on an increasingly part-time basis, until 1983, well past his 80th birthday. The first years of his appointment at Juilliard were also the period during which Sessions composed what some consider his greatest work, the cantata When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, on the poem by Walt Whitman.
Some of the major works written during the last twelve years of his life were the Five Pieces for Piano, the 9th symphony, and the valedictory Concerto for Orchestra, his last completed work. Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the piece was composed and premiered in 1981. Shortly after the premiere, Sessions, for this piece, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
[Portions courtesy of The Roger Sessions Society]
E. B. Marks Compositions:
*Concertino
for Chamber Orchestra
16'30"
1(Picc/Alto)1(EH)1(Eb/BsCl)1(Cbn)
2110 Timp Perc Str
*Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra
20'
3333 4231 Timp Perc Str
*Concerto
for Violin and Orchestra
35'
3(Picc/Alto)2(EH)4(Eb/BsCl &
Basset Hn)3 4220 Timp Perc Str (no Vlns)
*Duo for Violin and Piano 14'
*Finale from "The
Black Maskers" 4'
for Concert Band (arr. Bancroft)
*From My Diary
9'
for Solo Piano
*Idyll
of Theocritus
42'
for Soprano and Orchestra
2222 4231 Timp Perc Cel Hp Str
*Little Piece
*Waltz for Brenda
for Solo Piano
*Mass
15'
for Unison Choir and Organ
*Montezuma
150'
Opera in Three Acts
Libretto by G. A. Borgese
3343 4431 Timp Perc Pno Cel Hp Str
*On the Beach at
Fontana 3'
Voice and Piano
*Piano Sonata No. 2 12'30"
*Piano Sonata No. 3 21'
*Psalm 140
8'
for Soprano and Orchestra
33(Hecklephone)33 4221 Timp Perc Hp Str
*Romualdo's Song
4'
from "The Black Maskers"
for Soprano Soloist and Orchestra
1121 1210 Perc Pno Str
*Six Pieces for Solo Violoncello 6'
*Sonata for Solo Violin 34'
*First String Quartet 30'
*Second String Quartet 18'
*(String) Quintet 32'
*Suite from "The
Black Maskers" 22'
3343 4431 Timp Perc Pno Str
*Suite from
"Montezuma" 15'
3343 4431 Timp Perc Pno Hp Str
*Symphony
No. 1 22'
3(Picc)3(EH)43 4331 Timp Perc Pno
Str
*Symphony
No. 3 32'
3(Picc)343 4331 Timp Hp Cel Str
*Symphony
No. 4 24'
3343 4331 Timp Perc Pno Cel Hp
Str
*Symphony
No. 5 16'
3343 4231 Timp Perc Pno Cel Hp Str
*Symphony
No. 8 14'
3(Alto)34(Eb)4(Cbn) 4341 Timp
2Perc Pno Hp Str
*Three Chorale
Preludes 14'
for Organ
*The Trial of
Lucullus 72'
Opera in One Act
Libretto by Bertold Brecht
2121 2220 Timp Perc Pno Str
*Turn, O Libertad
4'
for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra
3342 4331 Timp Perc Pno Str
Selected Discography:
Complete Works for Solo
Piano
Barry David Salwen, Piano
ALBANY RECORDS
Symphonies No. 4 & No. 5
Columbus Symphony Orchestra
Christian Badea, cond.
NEW WORLD RECORDS
Symphony No. 8
The American Symphony Orchestra
Leon Botstein, cond.
NEW WORLD RECORDS
Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra
Monadnock Festival Orchestra
Ole Böhn, Violin
James Bolle, cond.
ALBANY RECORDS
French Radio Orchestra
Paul Zukofsky, Violin
Gunther Schuller, conductor
COMPOSERS RECORDINGS (CRI)
Piano Sonata
No. 3
David Holzman, Piano
BRIDGE RECORDS
Sonata
for Violin
[on the CD "Soliloquy"]
Curtis Macomber, Violin
KOCH INTERNATIONAL CLASSICS
Quintet
Pro Arte Quartet with Samuel
Rhodes
ALBANY RECORDS
First String Quartet
Quintet
Six Pieces for Violoncello
The Group for Contemporary Music
NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS
Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra
The Westchester Philharmonic
Robert Taub, Piano
Paul Dunkel, cond.
NEW WORLD RECORDS
Black Maskers Suite
The Juilliard Orchestra
Paul Zukofsky, cond.
NEW WORLD RECORDS
Idyll of Theocritus
Louisville Orchestra
Audrey Nossaman, Soprano
Robert Whitney, cond.
FIRST EDITION on NAXOS
Duo for Violin and Piano
Sonata for Solo Violin
Curtis Macomber, Violin
Barry David Salwen, Piano
KOCH INTERNATIONAL CLASSICS