…In the piano music collection I admired the earlier Sessions of the Piano Sonata No. 1(1927-30), the period of his ballet The Black Maskers, and regretted his move away from his Prokofiev/Bloch heritage. It is possible to feel the same way about these admirably prepared performances recorded here. There have been at least three earlier American recordings of the String Quartet in E minor (1938), two in the 1940s. It is the essence of chamber music with its long lines in the extended Adagio (track 12), and impressive example of Sessions's visionary imagination. The final Vivace has some common ground with Tippett.
The language of the Quintet (1958) is developed from the Schoenberg of the Third and Fourth Quartets, with a similar cantilena to the Quartet in a more advanced harmonic idiom. The energy of Sessions's faster movements, such as the finales of both works, is comparable and in performances like these from New York's admirable Group for Contemporary Music frequently electrifying.
The short, elegiac Canon to the memory of Stravinsky shows that Sessions felt deeply about both the great innovators of early twentieth-century music. The solo cello pieces use all the scope available and make the most of Joshua Gordon's virtuosity, even if the rather close recording is inclined to catch breathing sounds. Good CD notes from Andrea Olmstead whose writings have done so much for the composer. PD
Gramophone February 1995
Koch International Classics 7616 (Mid-Price CD)
String Quintet (1958) 20'10' [first recording]
Canons to the memory of Stravinsky (1971) 1'51" [first recording]
Six Pieces for Violoncello (1966) 12'51"
String Quartet in E-minor (1938) 30'37"
Performers:
Benjamin Hudson, first violin
Carol Zeavin, second violin
Lois Martin, viola
Joshua Gordon, cello
Six Pieces record at the Americam Academy of
Arts and Letters (11 September 1991). Produced and Engineered by Michael Fine. All other
works recorded at SUNY/Purchase. Engineered by Jerry Bruck. Edited by Joanna Nickrenz.
Executive Producer: Howard Stokar
Liner note by Andrea Olmstead
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