Roger Sessions

“ It is true that the same individual may well find himself, at other times, face to face with barriers which seem almost impenetrable, and such moments are dangerous and decisive. The dangers lie not so much in the isolation which he could expect to experience; the country is large enough, and music life is sufficiently real and benevolent, so to speak, to keep him from ever feeling completely alone, even in his early years. ”

“ Like the lady who so earnestly advised us to study the oboe or the trombone, most Americans, even those possessed of a knowledge of the music world, were, on the whole, inclined to discount the possibility that a composer of American origin could produce anything of importance. The young composers of that period had to look to their European elders not only for the means of learning their craft, but also for an awareness of what constitutes the craft of composition. ”

“ We have repeatedly referred to the characteristic fluidity of culture in the United States, to the fact that it is in a constant state of rapid development and under the lash of incessant self-criticism. It is impossible to exaggerate the significance of these facts which runs through the whole of our cultural life; but while it is easy to understand that one of their effects has been the extraordinary musical development of the past forty or fifty years, it must also be noted that they bring with them the danger of attitudes not entirely favorable to genuine artistic achievement. ”

“ In the universities the picture is different and the development impressive, though not devoid of problems. To understand what is going on, let us consider the role which the university plays in our culture. In our universities the most independent forces of American culture seem to gather—influences free from political or commercial pressures; the universities, more than any other institutions, sustain their role as strongholds of independent and liberal thought, and, with a few regrettable exceptions, they are jealously committed to the conservation of that independence. ”

“ It is hardly necessary to point out that there were also those who cared less for music than for social esteem, prestige, and “glamor”—the reflected and artificial magic of something which they neither understood nor desired to understand, since it was the magic and not the substance that mattered; the more remote the substance, the more enticing the magic. ”

“ The fact remains that what the public really wants from music, in the last analysis, is neither the mirrored image of itself nor fare chosen for easy digestibility, but vital and relevant experience. The composer can furnish such experience by writing from the plenitude of complete conviction, and without constraint. One cannot hope ever to convince anyone unless one has convinced one’s self ”

“ As one looks at the situation from the point of view of a large musical enterprise, one may well ask which public it aims to satisfy. The tendency must be to try to satisfy, as far as possible, the majority of listeners, to offer programs which will draw the greatest possible number of [Pg 66] people into the concert hall, and to convince them that they hear the best music that can be heard anywhere. The result is a kind of business ideology which bears a curious resemblance to the sincerely and justly despised ideology of the totalitarians, even though the coercive aspects are absent. ”

“ This disproportion is partly rectified by the existence of many recordings of Schönberg’s music, as it was, momentarily, balanced by performances of his works in his memory just after his death.
The great public finds all music difficult to grasp, not only contemporary music. Contemporary music meets with opposition in the United States because it is unfamiliar and hence difficult. On the other hand, with only slight exaggeration it can be pointed out that tradition has very little value as a weapon against those who would prefer hearing a concerto by Rachmaninoff to one by Mozart. ”

“ The answer lies not only in faith in one’s own national culture, but in thousands of facts which crowd in, sometimes emanating from unexpected sources. These facts support that faith. They point to the genuine, the most vital need for musical experience in the United States, and drive toward it; they constantly seek and possibly discover fresh channels through which these experiences can be achieved. The development, in fact, is so rapid that any discussion such as the present may seem outdated even before the ink is dry. ”

“ In such instances the drama is missed if the meaning of the words is not understood; and when the words are not completely understood in every detail, at least the experience of an enacted libretto can convey some of the power of the music.
It must be emphasized, however, that for any public a drama is drama only if it can become the reverse of remote. It must be truly and intimately felt; and a living theater cannot exist entirely on imported fare. In order really to live, an opera must be felt as drama ”

“ In spite of his association with mature musicians such as Bloch, Rosenfeld never learned to regard music as something other than a means of evocation, an art completely self-sufficient as a mode of expression, completely developed, an art [Pg 133] which demands of its devotees all their resources of craft and personality. He was therefore not in a position to help young composers as a connoisseur, to give them a sense of the demands of their craft or of the essence of musical expression. ”

“ One must insist once and for all that a vital American music life cannot be confined to the established conventions of concert and opera. We have already given attention to radio and recordings, which play so decisive a role, and interest us for manifesting sharp contrasts with features discussed in connection with concert and theater. Later comment is reserved for what may well be regarded as the most noteworthy aspect of American music life today: the multitude of impulses all over the country, the yearning for musical experience our concert and [Pg 95] opera life does not offer. ”

“ Fortunately there have always been others, such as Theodore Thomas of earlier days, or Karl Muck, forty-five years ago in Boston, or like the pianist Artur Schnabel, and there are still others who maintained the highest standards here as elsewhere and thus manifested fundamental respect for the American public, themselves, and their art. These personalities created, in the largest measure, our music life, and their inspired followers today obstruct its debasement. ”

“ In a drive toward maturity, one can lose sight of the necessity for a full and rich musical experience. The danger lies, then, in a search for shortcuts to maturity, while [Pg 123] actually maturity can be the result only of experience: in striving, as we sometimes do, to arrive at judgments in advance of genuine experience, which can be acquired only through love, that is, through an immediate and elementary response to music. The American public may gradually learn to surmount this danger as American listeners acquire more and more experience. ”

“ The [Pg 175] real task of the American composer is basically simple: it is that of winning for himself the means of bringing to life the music to which he listens within himself. This is identical with the task that has confronted all composers at all times, and in our age it involves, everywhere and in like manner, facing in our own way the problems of American music with single-mindedness and genuine dedication. Naturally, it obligates us to absorb the music culture not just of this or that country, but to seek large horizons and to explore indefatigably from a point of vantage. ”

“ The best way of approaching the question is to consider the basis on which our operatic institutions grew. We started with the institutions because, as always in the United States, there were people in those days who did not wish to be deprived in the New World of all they had been able to enjoy in the Old. The ever-present snobs gradually joined their ranks, and at the time the Metropolitan Opera was founded, twenty years after the Civil War, their influence was at its height. ”

“ Probably he saw the limitations of nationalist ideas as such and, like the European composers mentioned, came to the realization that by its very nature jazz is limited not only as material, but emotionally as well. Jazz may be considered a genre or a type, yet one discovers quickly that, passing beyond certain formulas, certain stereotyped emotive gestures, one enters the sphere of other music, and the concept of jazz no longer seems sensible. ”

“ One sometimes hears the question: if things are really so, if there is an absence of genuine tradition and we have to consider the existence of economic forces pervading our music life in an almost mechanistic fashion, is it not chimerical to hope for the development of a genuine music culture in the United States? ”

“ If we nourish the hope of surmounting the dangerous crisis through which western culture is presently passing, we must make clear distinctions, and if we wish to surmount the particular, so to speak, accessory crisis of American musical maturity, we must not lose sight of the difference between ideas of an aesthetic or sociological nature on the one hand, and, on the other, the individual works of art which supposedly embody them. ”

“ Broadly stated, one must admit that the performance of any new work is a serious risk in a situation where rising costs have vastly increased the economic hazards to which the enterprise is subjected. This is true even under best conditions. On the other hand, if an institution is to survive, it is imperative that fresh blood be constantly injected, and for an institution like the Metropolitan this means freshness and novelty in repertory as in everything else. ”

“ One might possibly add one more brand of nationalism to the folklorist, evocative, and primitivist—the attempt to base a national style on jazz. Such classification is of course artificial and of purely practical value. While folklorism, the evocation of American images, and the type of primitivism we have been discussing, are related exclusively to American backgrounds, jazz, on the other hand, though it originated in this country and is considered a product of our culture, has had an influence on music outside the United States. ”

“ Certain composers had hoped to find in jazz the basis for an “American” style and their efforts may be considered the most serious of all ever made to create an American music with “popular style” as its foundation (even though jazz can really not be called folk music in the accepted sense of the word) . These composers in jazz saw characteristic elements which they believed rich enough to allow development into a musical vocabulary, one of definite character, though limited to certain emotive characteristics in turn believed to be typically American. ”

“ They look with irony at the quest for audience appeal, which to them lacks musical conviction, even though occasionally it may be motivated by certain social beliefs. They are restive under the older attitudes aimed at helping the American composer as a matter of principle. They feel that such aims do not imply necessity, real desire, respect for, or interest in, the music Americans are writing, and to which they give all the resources they possess. ”

“ American motivation, but to a large extent consist of a strange brew composed of anti-European revulsion, personal prejudice, and the projection of this or that problem, or a solution with which he has become acquainted. What is lacking, as in the entire nationalist movement in our music, is awareness of the fact that genuine national character comes from within and must develop and grow of itself, that it cannot be imposed from without, and that, in the last analysis, it is a by-product, not an aim, of artistic expression. ”

“ The “great line of western tradition” provides the most fertile source of nourishment also for American music. This is now being recognized almost universally throughout the United States: and the recognition appears as the premise for our music education, criticism, and, in fact, for the responsible agencies of our entire music life. Today one hears very little of musical nationalism. ”

“ A certain portion of the public has always shown interest and enthusiasm for opera, to be sure, and such a public has always existed; however, there are signs that it has grown both larger and more adept through the influence of radio programs, concert performances, and other forces to be discussed later. Of late, it has become customary to devote a concert to the partial or complete performance of an operatic work rarely heard in the theater in the United States, and still more recently this practice has been extended to the performance of works even from the standard repertory. ”

“ It is not to the music or the concept of music—folklorist, evocative, popular, choose an adjective at will—that one should object, but to the exclusivity of a system of values which pretends to furnish criteria relevant to the development of music. ”

“ If subsidies, at least those at the Federal level, do not seem likely or wholly desirable at the present time and under present conditions, solutions must be sought elsewhere—in municipal or state subsidies, or in large foundations. For the moment we must content ourselves with and draw encouragement from the great variety and vitality of the various forces which flourish and prosper luxuriantly throughout our music life. It is difficult to believe, in view of all these impulses and purposeful activities, that ultimately a solution should not be found. ”

“ No one would claim that the problem has been solved in a satisfactory manner; and the composer who teaches composition in a university or elsewhere often faces problems which arise from the great disparity not only between the requirements of the craft and that which institutions can offer in this respect, but also between the degrees of preparation offered in various institutions. ”

“ That fact in itself fosters a tendency toward cultural centralization, one of the basic forces of music life today. There are also centrifugal tendencies which modify it, and which, at least in several of the large centers, may ultimately prevail. These large centers are, however, relatively few and distant from each other, and their musical autonomy is all too often attributable to the presence of one or more exceptionally strong personalities. In any case, the vast majority of American cities and towns receive their principal musical fare from New York. ”

“ Often an exaggerated reverence for music theory as a source for valid artistic criteria can be observed. However, contact of scholars with practical musicians often is fruitful: one can give the other something valid by way of sharpened insight into his own task.
The divergence between what is proper for the layman and essential for [Pg 110] the professional is a problem for both scholar and musician. Many a university music curriculum still bears traces of such divergence, and the history of university music in the United States could easily be covered from this point of view. ”

“ Only when the ideas are no longer preconceived, when, in other words, a large body of music of all kinds will have brought a secure tradition into being, then the American musical profile will emerge and the question of American style or character assume meaning. ”

“ The principal concern of music in the twenties was the idea of a national or “typically American” school or style and, eventually, a tradition which would draw to a focus the musical energies of our country which, as Rosenfeld once said to Aaron Copland and the author, would “affirm America.” The concern was not limited to composers, and in fact it was sometimes used as a weapon against individual composers by those whose preconceived ideas of what [Pg 141] “American” music should be did not square with the music in question. ”

“ Commercialism is by no means absent from our music life, but the problems arise from the necessities imposed by a system such as the one outlined, one in which cultural organizations [Pg 56] are organized in the manner of business enterprises, even though their purposes are basically noncommercial. In the effort to maintain a certain level, the enterprise must stretch its economic resources as far as possible, and in the effort to maintain or increase the resources, it must reach a constantly larger public. ”