Roger Sessions: How A "Difficult" Composer Got That Way

Prausnitz, Frederik

ISBN 10: 0195108922 / ISBN 13: 9780195108927

Edité par Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2002

A propos de cet article

348 pp. Tightly bound. Corners not bumped. Text is free of markings. No ownership markings. Near fine dust jacket. First Edition / First Printing. 1,3,5,7,9,8,6,2. This copy is smyth sewn. Smyth sewing is a method of bookbinding where groups of folded pages (referred to as signatures) are stitched together using binder thread. Each folded signature is sewn together individually with multiple stitches and then joined with other signatures to create the complete book block. This is the traditional and best method of bookbinding.

N° de réf. du vendeur 030520

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Roger Sessions: How A "Difficult" Composer Got That Way
• Éditeur: Oxford University Press, New York, NY
• Date de parution: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0195108922
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780195108927
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• Impression: 1st Printing
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: Near Fine Dust Jacket

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

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 remains profound. 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 as praise, 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.

À propos de l'auteur

Frederik Prausnitz, now retired, was a conductor with the BBC Symphony, the New Philharmonia Orchestra of London, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, and his own chamber ensemble. He also taught in the conducting program at the Peabody Conservatory of Music for many years. In 1974, he was the recipient of the American Bruckner Society's Mahler Medal of Honor. Roger Sessions's Ninth Symphony is dedicated to him.