Word: modernists
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Roger Sessions writes "difficult" music and likes it that way. When the headlines reported MODERNIST SYMPHONY BOOED, after his first Symphony was played in Philadelphia in 1935, he was delighted. When people called his Violin Concerto unplayable, he shrugged and looked around until he found himself a fiddler who could play it. Last week in Princeton, N.J., Sessions' long (75 minutes) one-act opera, The Trial of Lucullus, got its first hearing in the East. The score was, as usual, pretty tough going, but at least nobody booed...
Meanwhile, some of Sessions' early compositions, e.g., the "modernist symphony" and The Black Maskers (1923), have already passed from the realm of the fiendishly difficult to the comparatively easy, and seven of his works, including Symphony No. 2, are on LPs. He would not mind if the process continued. "Of course I would like my music to be liked by a great many people," he says. "It just doesn't work out that...
...Chicago's lakeside Gold Coast last week, builders broke ground for a pair of "glass cities." Designed by Modernist Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the project consists of two 29-story skyscrapers on one site, four 28-story structures about a mile away. The six buildings, clad in aluminum and tinted glass, will have 1,283 apartments, offer such luxury features as airconditioning, soundproof walls, double-oven kitchen ranges, and valet service. Rentals will range from $100 (for one room, dressing room, kitchenette and bath) to $700 (for a twelve-room apartment). To be built in 18 months...
...head as long ago as 1942. and he wrote them into arrangements for local bands. Six years later in Mexico, he formed his own band, and the mambo beat began to catch on. Prado's flair for the wild style-something like that of Stan Kenton's modernist crew -sold him with the jazz buffs and his insistent rhythm with the dancers...
When Pianist Oscar Peterson and his trio gave a fast-fingered version of Tenderly sprinkled with suave dissonances, the modernist crowd was ready to call it the high point of the festival. But the younger set shrieked louder when hollow-cheeked Gerry Mulligan bellowed and coaxed The Lady Is a Tramp through his big baritone sax. The concert finally ended after midnight with a 20-man jam session that sent the strangest sounds ever heard in Newport floating up to the stars...