The Symphony No. 2 of Roger Sessions was begun in 1944 and completed in 1946. It is in four movements:Steinberg, p. 529 #Molto agitato – Tranquillo e misterioso (

D minor D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major and its parallel major is D major. The D natural minor scale is: Changes needed for t ...

– all keys are "more or less".) #Allegretto capriccioso ( F minor) #Adagio tranquillo ed espressivo ( B-flat minor) #Allegramente ( D major) The symphony is dedicated "To the Memory of

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

", who died while Sessions was composing the Adagio tranquillo. The score is dated "Princeton-Gambier-Berkeley, 1944–46" – it was begun in Princeton, work continued at Kenyon College in

Gambier, Ohio Gambier is a village in Knox County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,391 at the 2010 census. Gambier is the home of Kenyon College. A major feature is a gravel path running the length of the village, referred to as "Middle Path". This ...

, and finished at the University of California at

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

. Though the work was originally commissioned by the Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the premiere, under

Pierre Monteux Pierre Benjamin Monteux (; 4 April 18751 July 1964) was a French (later American) conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in ...

and the

San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...

, took place 9–11 January 1947. This performance was not well received, and reviewer Marjory M. Fisher opined that "it seemed to express the epitome of all that is worst in the life and thinking of today." It received its New York City premiere three years later, on January 12, 1950. Sessions provided the following program note: “With reasonable accuracy it may be considered as in the Key of D minor—the movements being in D minor, F minor, B flat minor, and D major respectively. The subject of tonality is complex and even problematical nowadays, and if I use terms which I myself find inadequate to the facts of contemporary music, it is because they express certain essentials more satisfactorily than any others I know. “Those who would like a clue to what is sometimes called the 'emotional content' I would refer to the tempo indications of the various movements, which give a fair idea of the character of each—though the hearer may perhaps feel that the Adagio is predominantly dark and somber, and find that the last movement is interrupted, at its climax, by a blare of trombones, introducing an episode which contrasts sharply with the rest of the movement, which returns to its original character only gradually. As composer of this work I do not wish to go beyond this; to do so would imply a kind of commitment and could be taken to indicate conscious intentions which did not exist. The music took the shape it had to take—I strove, as I always do, to be simply the obedient and willing servant of my musical ideas. But it must be remembered always, I think, that for a composer musical ideas have infinitely more substance, more reality, more-specific meaning, and a more vital connection with experience than any words that could be found to describe them.”

Andrea Olmstead Andrea Olmstead (born September 5, 1948) is an American musicologist and historian. Reared in Grand Forks,North Dakota, Olmstead studied violin with Burton Kaplan in New York and with Lea Foli at the Aspen Music Festival; she was a member of the ...

describes all of Sessions's symphonies as "serious" and "funereal".Olmstead, Andrea (2012). ''Roger Sessions: A Biography'', p.356. Routledge. .

Recordings

#Dimitri Mitropoulos/Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York (Columbia Masterworks 10-inch LP ML 2120, monaural, 1950; reissued on Composers Recordings Inc., 12-inch LP CRI SD 278, 1972; reissued on CD, CRI CD 573, 1990) #Herbert Blomstedt/San Francisco Symphony (London CD, 1994)

Notes

References

*Canarina, John (2003). , with a preface by Neville Marriner. Pompton Plains, NJ, and Cambridge, UK: Amadeus Press. . * Prausnitz, Frederik (2002). . New York: Oxford University Press. . * Steinberg, Michael (1998). . Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. .

Recordings

Notes

References

Further reading