Questions about Music

Just over 150 pages, Roger Sessions' "Questions About Music" is nonetheless packed with all kinds of valuable insights into the musical experience. The book is divided into six chapters & an epilogue; each of the chapters is a lecture that Sessions gave at Harvard from 1968-1969, when he held the Charles Eliot Norton professorship there. Those familiar with Sessions' dense, muscular, mostly atonal symphonies, may be surprised to find his prose rather witty and completely accessible. He sheds considerable light on such topics as the nature of musical cognition, the compositional process, and the difficulties inherent in speaking about an art form which does not involve words. This book is invaluable for professional musicians, and curious non-musicians will find it a helpful tool in comprehending some of the more "difficult" classical music out there.