ROGER SESSIONS: A BIOGRAPHY Recognized as the primary American symphonist of the twentieth century, Roger Sessions (1896–1985) is one of the leading representatives of high modernism. His stature among American composers rivals Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Elliott Carter. Influenced by both Stravinsky and Schoenberg, Sessions developed a unique style marked by rich orchestration, long melodic phrases, and dense polyphony. In addition, Sessions was among the most influential teachers of composition in the United States, teaching at Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, and The Juilliard School. His students included John Harbison, David Diamond, Milton Babbitt, Frederic Rzewski, David Del Tredici, Conlon Nancarrow, Peter Maxwell Davies, George Tson- takis, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and many others. Roger Sessions: A Biography brings together considerable previously unpublished arch- ival material, such as letters, lectures, interviews, and articles, to shed light on the life and music of this major American composer. Andrea Olmstead, a teaching colleague of Sessions at Juilliard and the leading scholar on his music, has written a complete bio- graphy charting five touchstone areas through Sessions’s eighty-eight years: music, religion, politics, money, and sexuality. Andrea Olmstead, the author of Juilliard: A History, has published three books on Roger Sessions: Roger Sessions and His Music, Conversations with Roger Sessions, and The Correspondence of Roger Sessions. The author of numerous articles, reviews, program and liner notes, she is also a CD producer. This page intentionally left blank ROGER SESSIONS: A BIOGRAPHY Andrea Olmstead First published 2008 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Andrea Olmstead Typeset in Garamond 3 by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN 10: 0–415–97713–4 (hb) ISBN 10: 0–415–97714–2 (pb) ISBN 10: 0–203–93147–5 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–97713–5 (hb) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–97714–2 (pb) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–93147–9 (ebk) TO GORDON HARDY Remember that all the great composers, even Brahms, were exceedingly great men, and that they have done a lot for the world. They are far greater than you or I. Remember also that great men have their faults and shortcomings—every one of them; but do not let their shortcomings blind you to their real greatness or their raison d’être. Letter from Roger Sessions (age eighteen) to George Bartlett September 28, 1915 CONTENTS List of Figures x Acknowledgments xii Introduction xiv CHAPTER 1 Family History 1 Forty Acres and Phelps House3 Archibald Sessions 18 417 Washington Avenue 25 109 Elm Street 34 Cloyne, Kingsley, and Kent 40 Harvard 51 Harvard Musical Review 68 CHAPTER 2 Yale through the Cleveland Institute 79 Yale 81 World War I 99 Barbara Foster 116 George Bartlett 128 Ernest Bloch 137 Cleveland Institute of Music 143 The Black Maskers 153 Friends 164 vii CONTENTS Summer of 1924 170 Stravinsky 184 CHAPTER 3 The European Period, 1925–1933 189 Father figures 191 Florence 200 Symphony No. 1 207 Boulanger and Copland 215 The American Academy in Rome 226 Berlin 234 CHAPTER 4 The Decade 1936–1946 241 Marriage and the Violin Concerto 243 David Diamond 256 Princeton 263 Symphony No. 2 273 CHAPTER 5 The Trial of Lucullus through Montezuma 281 Berkeley 283 The Trial of Lucullus 294 Schoenberg and Dallapiccola 302 Symphonies Nos 3 and 4 316 Montezuma 328 CHAPTER 6 The Last Two Decades 339 California and Juilliard 341 Religious music 348 The symphonies 354 viii CONTENTS Death and posthumous reputation 368 Notes 374 Bibliography 412 Discography and Works List (online) 417 Index 419 ix FIGURES 1 Hilltop cabin at Forty Acres4 2 Hannah Dane Sargent and Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington, 18956 3 Ruth Huntington8 4 Forty Acres 11 5 Phelps House 12 6 Archibald Sessions at Harvard, 1883 19 7 Archibald Sessions, 1908 19 8 Roger’s birthplace 27 9 Ruth, Roger, and John Sessions 32 10 109 Elm Street (Sessions House) 35 11 Roger at age eight 36 12 Huntington family, 1903 38 13 Kingsley School 44 14 Roger at age eleven 47 15 Roger Sessions, 1915 and 1940 62 16 George Hodges Bartlett 86 17 Frederik van den Arend 87 18 George Hodges Bartlett 100 19 Barbara Foster 117 20 Ruth Huntington, Catharine Huntington, Barbara Sessions, and Roger Sessions 125 21 Ernest Bloch, 1925 138 22 Cleveland Institute 144 23 Bloch and pupils 147 24 Program for The Black Maskers 157 25 Roger Sessions, 1924 171 26 Samuel Barber, Igor Stravinsky, Lukas Foss, Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, 1959 186 27 Villino Corbignano in Settignano 201 28 Igor Stravinsky and Roger Sessions 209 29 Roger Sessions portrait 231 30 Sessions, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Alban Berg, Egon Wellesz, 1933 240 31 Lisl Sessions 244 32 Elizabeth and John Sessions 254 33 Roger and Lisl Sessions 255 34 Black Mountain Summer Music Institute faculty, 1944 271 35 70 Alexander Street, Princeton 291 x FIGURES 36 Douglas Moore, Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Wallingford Riegger, William Schuman, and Walter Piston, ca. 1958 292 37 Music building at Berkeley 295 38 Luigi Dallapiccola 309 39 Symphonic Prelude compared with Symphony No. 3 318 40 The Opera Company of Boston 1976 production of Montezuma, Act I 329 41 Quetzalcoatl 335 42 Roger Sessions and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in the early 1970s 345 43 Andrea Olmstead and Roger Sessions, 1976 345 44 63 Stanworth Lane, Princeton 346 45 Elizabeth Sessions Pease, Roger Pease, and Suzie, ca. 1981 358 46 Roger Sessions, 1982 359 47 Sessions’s last signature 370 48 Sessions’s grave marker 371 xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the following people for their generous assistance and credit those who provided permissions. Elizabeth Sessions Pease, daughter of the composer, for her warm friendship and help over many years. And I would like to remember Bob Pease’s kindness here. Wayne Shirley’s expertise and editorial experience was of enormous help in reading the manu- script. Letters of support from John Harbison, Lewis Lockwood, David Diamond, Mark DeVoto, and James Schmidt. Richard Carlin, former editor at Routledge, and editor Constance Ditzel. Composer Larry Bell, for insights into the music. The Handel & Haydn Society, for their 2005–2007 Christopher Hogwood Research Fellowship. Numerous libraries and archives were useful. Bonnie J. Houser, reference librarian and archivist at the Cleveland Institute of Music went beyond the call of duty in her helpfulness. Andrea Goldstein and the staff at Harvard University Archives. Susan Lisk of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Foundation and Daria D’Arienzo from the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. Kendall Crilly, Suzanne Lovejoy, and Richard Boursy at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University. Yale Univer- sity’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Loras Schissel at the Library of Con- gress, Sessions Collection. Mike Vitale, archivist, and Christina Huemer, librarian, of the American Academy in Rome. Nancy Carroll and Wendy Kieron-Sanchez, Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, Rhode Island. Bridget Carr, archivist of Boston Symphony Orchestra. Kristin Parker, archivist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Autumn Mather at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The Radcliffe College and Smith College archives. The New England Historic Genea- logical Society and The Massachusetts Historical Society. The University of California at Berkeley Jean Hargrove Music Library librarians John Roberts, Manuel Erviti, and Matthew Weber. The University archives at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Kathryn Neal. Also Jonathan Elkus for his memories of his father, Albert Elkus, and of Sessions and Berkeley. Princeton University Seeley Mudd Library librarian Tad Bennicoff, and Princeton Archives and Rare Books Library librarians Don Skemer and AnnaLee Pauls. Carol S. Jacobs, archivist of the Cleveland Orchestra. Gordon Tanselle at the Guggenheim Foundation. Marge Othrow of Brooklyn, New York. German musicologist Thorsten Preuss. Martin Brody, who provided a photograph of I Tatti villino. Georganne Mennin for a Sessions letter. The former Kent School publications director Barbara Humphreys. Alex Johnstone and Susan Oatzu at the American Composers Orchestra. Marie Parik of Historic Northampton. For permissions, in addition to those mentioned above, I would like to thank: Elizabeth Sessions Pease, for permissions to quote from her father, Roger Sessions, xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS aunt Hannah Sessions, and her grandparents Ruth and Archibald Sessions. Also her permission to use material from letters, interviews, unpublished articles, as well as prose publications. Thanks are due, too, for several family photographs she generously let me reproduce. George Bartlett, nephew of the eponymous Sessions friend, for permission to quote from his uncle’s letters and for a photograph of him. Mary Marshall Clark for permission to quote from the Sessions interviews for Columbia University Oral History project. The late Laura Dallapiccola for permission to quote from her husband’s letters. The Fonda- tion International Nadia et Lili Boulanger, Dominique Merlet, President, for permission to quote from letters by Nadia Boulanger. Alexander Eliot for the use of Samuel Eliot Jr’s letter to this author. Anne W. Gordon, daughter of Roy D. Welch, for use of a manuscript.