"I have sometimes been told that my music is 'difficult' for the listener"
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There is a quiet dare baked into Sessions's polite phrasing: "I have sometimes been told" casts the complaint as secondhand, almost routine, as if the accusation of "difficult" is less an indictment than a social reflex. Sessions doesn't rebut it here; he frames it. That restraint is the point. He treats "difficulty" not as a defect but as a category listeners reach for when the usual contracts of melody, harmony, and quick gratification aren't being honored.
Sessions came of age when American concert music was trying to decide what it owed to audiences and what it owed to modernism. By mid-century, "difficulty" had become a proxy war term: for some, it meant rigor, seriousness, the hard-won pleasure of new grammar; for others, it meant elitism, a composer writing past the room. Sessions's sentence sits right on that fault line. He doesn't say the music is difficult; he says listeners say it is, shifting the focus to perception, training, and expectation. The subtext: if the ear has been educated on romantic lyricism and tonal resolution, a thornier language will feel like resistance.
The quote also hints at Sessions's ethics. He was a teacher as much as a composer, committed to craft and structural thought. "Difficult" becomes a measure of how much listening is being asked to do: not just to receive, but to participate. There's an implied critique of consumer-style listening, where ease is mistaken for value. Sessions isn't begging for patience; he's asserting that some art doesn't flatter you on first encounter, and that the work of attention is part of the reward.
Sessions came of age when American concert music was trying to decide what it owed to audiences and what it owed to modernism. By mid-century, "difficulty" had become a proxy war term: for some, it meant rigor, seriousness, the hard-won pleasure of new grammar; for others, it meant elitism, a composer writing past the room. Sessions's sentence sits right on that fault line. He doesn't say the music is difficult; he says listeners say it is, shifting the focus to perception, training, and expectation. The subtext: if the ear has been educated on romantic lyricism and tonal resolution, a thornier language will feel like resistance.
The quote also hints at Sessions's ethics. He was a teacher as much as a composer, committed to craft and structural thought. "Difficult" becomes a measure of how much listening is being asked to do: not just to receive, but to participate. There's an implied critique of consumer-style listening, where ease is mistaken for value. Sessions isn't begging for patience; he's asserting that some art doesn't flatter you on first encounter, and that the work of attention is part of the reward.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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