Roger Sessions : how a "difficult" composer got that way / Frederik Prausnitz.
| Author/creator | Prausnitz, Frederik |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2002. |
| Description | xi, 348 pages : illustrations, music ; 25 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | The matriarch -- The consort -- Young Roger -- Letters from Harvard -- Ernest Bloch -- Berenson -- The musical idea I -- Summer of 1929 -- Berlin interlude -- Home -- Sea change -- Something more -- The musical idea II -- Teacher -- Family, friends, and Montezuma -- Berkeley -- Dallapiccola -- The musical idea III -- Harvest -- Appendix. Overview ; Musical terms ; Ernest Bloch notes, 1925. |
| Abstract | The life of Roger Sessions, composer, writer, teacher of several generations of American composers and a commanding figure on the musical scene of his time, was as remarkable for its creative single-mindedness as for its apparent contradictions. Sessions spent years in painstakingly deliberate discovery of a musical craft that would provide, in his words, "the musical syntax of conscious emotion" he needed in order to realize the powerful musical images that informed all his works. With only a small, widely spaced output of compositions at the halfway point of his long life, he enjoyed the solid respect of his peers. An enormous harvest of masterful works to follow made his name something to conjure with when major musical organizations decided on commissions. But the musical establishment continued to enfold him in the kind of cordial embrace that keeps a man at arm's length. His music was considered too difficult for performers and audiences alike, and encountered durable, if intensely respectful, neglect. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-333) and index. |
| LCCN | 2001036718 |
| ISBN | 0195108922 |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Music | Music Stacks | ML410.S473 P73 2002 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |