Roger Sessions

This article was a reminder about how poorly the intellectual musical world takes writing. Sessions boils down the point of music through a vague look at serialism and 12-tone technique. He fails to adequately address his own topic.

Firstly, Roger points at the theory of art history, stating that it "seeks and provides criteria by which the main periods of change may be compared with one another..." Ultimately, he states that there are time periods to art and music, in vague, uncommitted language. Further, this statement leads one to believe that the style and motives behind what is art changes; the point of art changes as a function of time. However, has not art gradually changed in function as well as form? The distinction of more readily available materials, innovation through each artist, not the time in which they live, is of vast importance.


Next he refers to Beethoven and Mozart and claims both relied upon 'correspondence and reminiscences' to make their musical points. Rather, did they not leave interpretation up to the performer? Of course it was a less diverse musical climate, due to the tools they had to work with. However, these composers could (and did) occasionally insert dynamic markings and articulations into the scores to make their intentions known. The form of their music does rely on past experiences, but they were breaking the mold, while at the same time promoting music that appealed to their audience. Mozart was composing as a career, he did it to earn a living, not to change the world and become one of the most recognized names in classical music. He did, but his intent was to earn a living.

Sessions thinks of composers as breaking custom and finding new ways to break the mold, accusing them of not being innovative with form and notation, when in fact it may have simply been building upon the steps their predecessors constructed in order to communicate music in a new way. The music changes from composer to composer, in style, form, function. Each composer had his own 'sound' and utilized his tools in a different way. Today the availability of musical composition tools is infinite. A composer is only limited by his imagination.

does not take the evolution of music into account. this was the only thing available at the time, besides street and home music. Today this is not the case, and the fact is, today's generation would rather be submerged in simpler music than people of mozart's day were.

This seems to be a function of respect and homage for one's elders rather than a break from tradition, Sessions does not see it that way, however. He never looks at the mainstream music of today with this critical eye. He hammers on the function of serialism without looking at how music is de-volving functionally into the same sound.


Why not look at what is going on with the popular music today? Does it not make use of the new technologies? Does it not seek to create new sounds? Sessions refuses to acknowledge popular music of the last fifty years and think that we may be on the brink of a repeat of the evolution of tonality. Looking at many songs on the radio today, we can see that most boil down to I IV V and I!

Later, he claims that serialism is not for young composers! This is a total farce. We study early works by composers to gain an insight into how to write and what ideas they came up with. Some composers we even watch grow through their early works.  Through this section, he talks about how one should master serialism before using it, but to say that anyone can 'master' music is a wild assumption to say the least.


Nearing the end of the article, Session's says it is only the results that matter, a perfect example of his lack of clarity and definition. His writing style would frustrate an academic of any other field through sheer lack of examples and supporting statements. He makes few (if any) references to back up his points.           

Our musical heritage is moving towards a more obscure place with each passing year. Western music of this variety becomes more obscure and less interesting with each passing year. The interest in this genre is dying, and as much as we study it, it will still be dying. Rather, we should use it to promote something greater. Rather than study, we should play.