ROGER SESSIONS, 88, COMPOSER:- Monday, March 18, 1985
Roger Huntington Sessions, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his work as a composer of music that some said "bears the thumbprints of a master," has died at age 88.
He died Saturday at the Medical Center at Princeton.
Recognized as one of the most important composers of this century, Sessions received the Pulitzer Prize in music for his 1981 composition, "Concerto for Orchestra. "
Sessions reached the mandatory retirement age at Princeton in 1965 but continued as the William Shubael Conat professor emeritus of music.
In 1974, he received a special Pulitzer citation "for his life's work as a distinguished American composer. "
After retiring from Princeton, he served on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York.
Most of Session's works symphonies, operas, concertos were written in a highly chromatic idiom that Sessions described as a "sweeping and cumulative deployment of a sustained musical impulse. "
His work, like much modern music, evoked extremes of criticism and praise. Some called it "craggy" and "granitic" while others said it "bears the thumbprints of a master. "
His most popular and accessible compositions are probably the orchestral suite "The Black Maskers," released in 1923, and "First Symphony," 1927.
Some critics regard his finest work to be the three-act opera "Montezuma," whose 1964 world premiere in West Berlin provoked the audience to fistfights and 15 curtain calls. The composer's favorite was the cantata "When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd," with text by Walt Whitman.
Sessions, who was born in Brooklyn, entered Harvard at age 14, where he edited the Harvard Musical Review and graduated with the class of 1915.
After earning a bachelor's degree in music from Yale in 1917, he studied under the Swiss composer Ernest Bloch and taught music theory at Smith College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and other schools in the United States and abroad.
He was a member of the Princeton faculty from 1935 to 1945, when he moved to the University of California at Berkeley.
He returned to Princeton in 1953 as the first William Shubael Conant professor of music.
Sessions was the seminal teacher whose proteges include such distinguished American composers as Milton Babbitt and Edward T. Cone of Princeton, as well as Earl Kim, David Diamond, Leon Kirshner, and Andrew Imbrie.
He wrote four books, the latest of which "Harmonic Practice and Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays," was published in 1979.
Sessions is survived by his son, John, of North Hampton, Mass.; his daughter, Elizabeth S. Pease of New York City, and two grandchildren.
Roger Huntington Sessions, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his work as a composer of music that some said "bears the thumbprints of a master," has died at age 88.
He died Saturday at the Medical Center at Princeton.
Recognized as one of the most important composers of this century, Sessions received the Pulitzer Prize in music for his 1981 composition, "Concerto for Orchestra. "
Sessions reached the mandatory retirement age at Princeton in 1965 but continued as the William Shubael Conat professor emeritus of music.
In 1974, he received a special Pulitzer citation "for his life's work as a distinguished American composer. "
After retiring from Princeton, he served on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York.
Most of Session's works symphonies, operas, concertos were written in a highly chromatic idiom that Sessions described as a "sweeping and cumulative deployment of a sustained musical impulse. "
His work, like much modern music, evoked extremes of criticism and praise. Some called it "craggy" and "granitic" while others said it "bears the thumbprints of a master. "
His most popular and accessible compositions are probably the orchestral suite "The Black Maskers," released in 1923, and "First Symphony," 1927.
Some critics regard his finest work to be the three-act opera "Montezuma," whose 1964 world premiere in West Berlin provoked the audience to fistfights and 15 curtain calls. The composer's favorite was the cantata "When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd," with text by Walt Whitman.
Sessions, who was born in Brooklyn, entered Harvard at age 14, where he edited the Harvard Musical Review and graduated with the class of 1915.
After earning a bachelor's degree in music from Yale in 1917, he studied under the Swiss composer Ernest Bloch and taught music theory at Smith College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and other schools in the United States and abroad.
He was a member of the Princeton faculty from 1935 to 1945, when he moved to the University of California at Berkeley.
He returned to Princeton in 1953 as the first William Shubael Conant professor of music.
Sessions was the seminal teacher whose proteges include such distinguished American composers as Milton Babbitt and Edward T. Cone of Princeton, as well as Earl Kim, David Diamond, Leon Kirshner, and Andrew Imbrie.
He wrote four books, the latest of which "Harmonic Practice and Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays," was published in 1979.
Sessions is survived by his son, John, of North Hampton, Mass.; his daughter, Elizabeth S. Pease of New York City, and two grandchildren.
ROGER SESSIONS, 88, COMPOSER:- Monday, March 18, 1985
Roger Huntington Sessions, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his work as a composer of music that some said "bears the thumbprints of a master," has died at age 88.
He died Saturday at the Medical Center at Princeton.
Recognized as one of the most important composers of this century, Sessions received the Pulitzer Prize in music for his 1981 composition, "Concerto for Orchestra. "
Sessions reached the mandatory retirement age at Princeton in 1965 but continued as the William Shubael Conat professor emeritus of music.
In 1974, he received a special Pulitzer citation "for his life's work as a distinguished American composer. "
After retiring from Princeton, he served on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York.
Most of Session's works symphonies, operas, concertos were written in a highly chromatic idiom that Sessions described as a "sweeping and cumulative deployment of a sustained musical impulse. "
His work, like much modern music, evoked extremes of criticism and praise. Some called it "craggy" and "granitic" while others said it "bears the thumbprints of a master. "
His most popular and accessible compositions are probably the orchestral suite "The Black Maskers," released in 1923, and "First Symphony," 1927.
Some critics regard his finest work to be the three-act opera "Montezuma," whose 1964 world premiere in West Berlin provoked the audience to fistfights and 15 curtain calls. The composer's favorite was the cantata "When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd," with text by Walt Whitman.
Sessions, who was born in Brooklyn, entered Harvard at age 14, where he edited the Harvard Musical Review and graduated with the class of 1915.
After earning a bachelor's degree in music from Yale in 1917, he studied under the Swiss composer Ernest Bloch and taught music theory at Smith College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and other schools in the United States and abroad.
He was a member of the Princeton faculty from 1935 to 1945, when he moved to the University of California at Berkeley.
He returned to Princeton in 1953 as the first William Shubael Conant professor of music.
Sessions was the seminal teacher whose proteges include such distinguished American composers as Milton Babbitt and Edward T. Cone of Princeton, as well as Earl Kim, David Diamond, Leon Kirshner, and Andrew Imbrie.
He wrote four books, the latest of which "Harmonic Practice and Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays," was published in 1979.
Sessions is survived by his son, John, of North Hampton, Mass.; his daughter, Elizabeth S. Pease of New York City, and two grandchildren.
Roger Huntington Sessions, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his work as a composer of music that some said "bears the thumbprints of a master," has died at age 88.
He died Saturday at the Medical Center at Princeton.
Recognized as one of the most important composers of this century, Sessions received the Pulitzer Prize in music for his 1981 composition, "Concerto for Orchestra. "
Sessions reached the mandatory retirement age at Princeton in 1965 but continued as the William Shubael Conat professor emeritus of music.
In 1974, he received a special Pulitzer citation "for his life's work as a distinguished American composer. "
After retiring from Princeton, he served on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York.
Most of Session's works symphonies, operas, concertos were written in a highly chromatic idiom that Sessions described as a "sweeping and cumulative deployment of a sustained musical impulse. "
His work, like much modern music, evoked extremes of criticism and praise. Some called it "craggy" and "granitic" while others said it "bears the thumbprints of a master. "
His most popular and accessible compositions are probably the orchestral suite "The Black Maskers," released in 1923, and "First Symphony," 1927.
Some critics regard his finest work to be the three-act opera "Montezuma," whose 1964 world premiere in West Berlin provoked the audience to fistfights and 15 curtain calls. The composer's favorite was the cantata "When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd," with text by Walt Whitman.
Sessions, who was born in Brooklyn, entered Harvard at age 14, where he edited the Harvard Musical Review and graduated with the class of 1915.
After earning a bachelor's degree in music from Yale in 1917, he studied under the Swiss composer Ernest Bloch and taught music theory at Smith College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and other schools in the United States and abroad.
He was a member of the Princeton faculty from 1935 to 1945, when he moved to the University of California at Berkeley.
He returned to Princeton in 1953 as the first William Shubael Conant professor of music.
Sessions was the seminal teacher whose proteges include such distinguished American composers as Milton Babbitt and Edward T. Cone of Princeton, as well as Earl Kim, David Diamond, Leon Kirshner, and Andrew Imbrie.
He wrote four books, the latest of which "Harmonic Practice and Roger Sessions on Music: Collected Essays," was published in 1979.
Sessions is survived by his son, John, of North Hampton, Mass.; his daughter, Elizabeth S. Pease of New York City, and two grandchildren.
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