Symphony No. 6 (Sessions)
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The Symphony No. 6 of Roger Sessions, a symphony written using the twelve-tone technique, was composed in 1966. It was commissioned by the state of New Jersey and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.[1] The score carries the dedication: "In celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the state of New Jersey".[2]
Sessions began composing the symphony in the summer of 1965 while traveling in South America, and completed it at Tanglewood in 1966. It is the first of a trilogy of symphonies, composed in rapid succession, which Sessions associated with the Vietnam war.[3] The premiere[when?] was a disaster, with the finale still incomplete and the first movement played as a finale to make up for this;[citation needed] it was given its first complete performance and its New York premiere by the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by José Serebrier on 4 March 1977.[4] It was published by 1976.[5] The score bears the copyright year 1975.[2]
Music
The symphony is scored for 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 4 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harp, and strings.[6]
- Allegro
- Adagio e tranquillo[8]
- Allegro moderato
Andrea Olmstead describes all of Sessions's symphonies as "serious" and "funereal".[9]
Richard Swift describes the second movement as "lofty" and ascribes its "profundities to what are essentially simple processes that unwind with a sense of great spaciousness".[10]
