Search - Sessions, Zukofsky, Schuller :: Violin Concerto

Great music

08/12/1999

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The only recording (an embarssment to all of our major symphony orchestras!) of the Session Violin Concerto) one of the great works of the later 20th Century. The Wolpe is an extraodinary work -- even if this recording is rather sloppy. Essential for anyone interested in the music of our own time."

Amazing piece; problematic performance

ciberbear | nyc/montreal | 12/12/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Like most of Sessions' work, the musical language and the emotional intensity make great demands on the listener. There is nothing lightweight, sanguine, or superficial about this piece. It reveals its beauties and marvels gradually with repeated hearings, and so will not please listeners who are more comfortable with pieces whose technical structure and emotional content are transparently accessible upon first audition. However, once one succeeds in "lifting the veil," one discovers almost limitless levels of structure and emotional depth, finding something new to admire with every encounter. This concerto's technical requirements go beyond the virtuostic: although it never gets overtly "flashy" at any point, it is monstrously difficult for the soloist, possibly the most difficult violin concerto ever written. Some have gone so far as to complain that certain parts of it border on being unplayable. The orchestra parts are almost as difficult. There are no violins in the orchestration, and an augmented wind section features the exotic colorations of alto flute, basset horn, etc. The unique sonorities and the dense contrapuntal texture require familiarity, understanding, and deft balancing from the players and the conductor. These challenges are the reasons why this concerto is not played more often. Here in this c. 35 year old recording, Zukovsky is up to the demands of the piece, but the orchestra is not. They sound as though they are sightreading. They get the notes, but not much else. There is little ensemble or expression. The overall effect is stiff, unbalanced, unpolished, and unsophisticated. That being said, it is still a great thing to have ANY recording of this masterpiece (IMHO one of the greatest works ever composed). One can only hope for better in the future. (I understand there is a new-ish recording of this concerto, but I have not yet heard it, and so cannot compare.) The period stereo sound is adequate."

The Sessions VC is the masterpiece here - worthy of any of t

Discophage | France | 01/19/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I didn't expect this: a hauntingly beautiful and original Violin Concerto, arguably one among the great masterpieces written in the genre in the first 50 years of the 20th Century. I've reviewed quite a lot of music of Roger Sessions in these past few months, and I noticed that (like all the rest of his output) the Violin Concerto is a seldom recorded piece. Other than this one I am aware of only one other, and more recent, recording: Roger Sessions: Violin Concerto; James Bolle: Ritual. And I wasn't surprised: Sessions is a serious, even stern composer, his orchestral compositions are highly elaborate, but unseductive.



In fact, I wasn't aware that the Violin Concerto was an early work (1935), way before Sessions' embrace of Schoenberg's twelve-tone method, of which (after an intial rejection) he became one of the early and major American proponents (with Wallingford Riegger).



Hearing Sessions Violin Concerto, one understands his later embrace of Schoenberg's serialism - but, in a way, one also regrets it. His orchestration does without the violins - which means that Sessions eschews any Romantic tradition and feeling. Winds and brass dominate. The atmosphere is sparser, and it is rather Stravinsky that the orchestration brings to mind. Intimations of Schoenberg can be heard in some of the square rhythms of the first movement, in the melodic lines verging on atonalism, and generally in the elaborate counterpoint.



But the surprise for me is that the Concerto is also beautifully, even painfully lyrical, in a way that would almost evoke Barber's Violin Concerto (although Sessions' melodic contours are much less evidently tonal, and his orchestral counterpoint much more elaborate and eventful). The Concerto follows the traditional architecture (the first movement is "Largo e tranquillo", then comes a scherzo (allegro), Romanza (andante) and Finale (Molto vivace e sempre con fuoco). In the fast movements some orchestral or soloistic gestures may vaguely remind of Bartok's Violin Concerto (but Bartok's was written 4 years later) or, in some of the perky woodwind commentaries, Stravinsky's, but only very vaguely.



Now remember: 1935. I don't know who composed like that back then. 1935 is when Prokofiev composed his Second. Stravinsky's was from 1931, Berg's was 1937 and Bartok's the same year as Barber's: 1939. Schoenberg's was completed in 1936, but Sessions is much more lyrical (and tonal). His Violin Concerto is entirely original, and worthy of all these others.



So why did Sessions move away from such an outpouring lyricism? Maybe he felt he had said all there was to be said in that vein. He didn't milk it.



Too bad for us.



The booklet does not give the date of recording, only mentioning that the soloist, Paul Zukofsky, was 24 when he made it, which computes to 1967. The sonics are excellent, with spacious stereo. Zukofsky's tone remains unfailingly beautiful and the French radio orchestra seems on top of the music. The liner notes for Sessions, by a Ruth Dreier, presumably reproduced from the original LP, are useless. They consist of a literary comparison between Sessions and... Walt Whitman. Why Whitman? No link whatsoever. The only purpose of the comparison seems to contrast the prolixity of Whitman and the scarcity of Sessions' inspiration. The only words we get on the Concerto are that "one's breath is taken away by the sheer audacity of a youthful composer coupling joyously, openly and accessibly with his muse". Yeech! Apparently nobody proofread the liner notes, either. The last line of each column is repeated at the top of the next one - gives you the feeling that your mind is stuttering. In the notes for Wolpe you also read the wonderfully nonsensical sentence: "according the Wolpe's program not the third movement is an exuberant, joyful, athletic piece". On the back cover conductor Arthur Weisberg becomes Arthur Wesburg.



Once again the music of Stefan Wolpe strikes me as providing a perfect caricature of "contemporary music", e.g. post-Webern 12-tone music, as it could be sneered upon in the 1950s to 1980s. Of his String Quartet I wrote that it sounded like "furious Webern" (The Juilliard String Quartet), and the same is true with the Symphony. It was composed in 1955 but premiered only 10 years later. It is packed with orchestral events, but it all sounds pretty arbitrary. Also, although the symphony is formally divided in three mouvements, you do not get the sense that anything changes from movement to movement: it could be one continuous, furious movement. Reading the liner notes after hearing the music is likely to make you laugh: they contend, for instance, that "the first movement is an essay in intimate lyricism". Boy, is that wilful deception! It is an essay in furious Webern.



What is it that makes Schoenberg's and Sessions' orchestral works so much more interesting and engaging than Wolpe's, although they broadly follow the same principles of composition? I would tentatively say that there is, with them, a genuinely lyrical sense of melody. Their lyricism and melodies may be atonal, stern, elaborately counterpointed by other stern melodies (and that too makes their compositions highly engaging), you still get that sense of direction. With Wolpe you certainly have a wealth, even a surfeit of furious orchestral events, but they sound like an arbitrary colletion of noises. It doesn't even have the evocative power of the composers of the 1960s avant-garde (Penderecki, Xenakis and many others) who, after Varèse, invented novel playing techniques and made noise into music, using the orchestra for color rather than melody. With Wolpe the instruments are used quite traditionally, even if it is at times in uncomfortable registers (for the player and listener). So you don't even get the impression of sonic discovery of great dramatic impact that you get with the "noises" of that avant-garde generation of the sixties.



This is the recording of a live performance given in New York on Septembre 1, 1975. The recording sounds like it was made on amateur equipment, the sonics sound mono, lacking bloom and depth, and come with a permanent static.



My stars are for Sessions."