Part 53

WESTSIDER ROGER SESSIONS Composer of the future

2-10-79

The story of Western music, from the baroque era to the present day, has been written largely by men whose contributions to their art were underappreciated during their own lifetimes. Serious music has a tendency to be ahead of its time, and must wait for the public taste to catch up before it can be accepted.

Such is the case with Roger Sessions. For at least 50 years he has been considered by the American academic establishment to be one of the most gifted and original composers of his generation. But his work has started to gain wide recognition with the general public only since the early 1960s. Today, at 82, he is comfortable in his role as the elder statesman of American concert music. Although relatively few of his works have been recorded -- they place extraordinary demands on both performer and listener -- Sessions continues to write music with practically unabated energy. His most significant official honor came in 1974, when the Pulitzer Prize Committee issued a special citation naming him "one of the most musical composers of the century."

Since his early 20s, Session has led a dual career as a composer and a teacher of music theory. A former professor at both the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University, he has published several books on his musical ideas, and now teaches two days a week at the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center. When I heard that his piano sonatas were going to be performed soon on West 57th Street, I called him to request an interview, and he promptly concurred. We met for lunch at La Crepe on Broadway, and over the meal Sessions revealed himself to be a man of wit, humility, and charm.

Speaking of his piano sonatas, which will be performed at Carnegie Recital Hall in February, March and April, Sessions commented in his slow, precise manner of speech that "the first one was composed in 1930, the second one was composed in '46, and the third one was composed in '65. One sonata will be performed on each program. ... I have heard the young lady play one of them. She's going to come and play for me today. I'm helping her to prepare them. Because they're difficult and they take a lot of practice. Her name is Miss Rebecca la Becque. I just laid eyes on her for the first time last week."

Nearly half of his works have been composed in the last 20 years; some are quite melodic; others are so atonal and eery that to some people they suggest the rhythm of the universe itself, or music from the stars. One remarkable aspect of his compositions is that no two are even vaguely alike; another is that they come in so many different instrumental combinations. Besides his piano works, he has composed for violin, organ, cello, chorus and solo voice. In addition, there are his string quartets, his rhapsodies, his nine symphonies, and Montezuma, one of the most distinguished operas ever written by an American.

Why write in so many forms? "You might say I'm paid to," he explained, ordering a second espresso and lighting his pipe. "Generally when I write a big work, it's for a specific purpose." His eighth symphony, for example, was written for the New York Philharmonic to commemorate the orchestra's 125th anniversary.

When I asked Sessions whether he was concerned that most of his works are not available on albums, he said calmly, "I never have tried to get my works recorded or performed. I decided years ago that people would have to come to me; I wasn't coming to them. Things move a little more slowly that way, but one knows that everything one gets is perfectly genuine. ... When I wrote my first symphony, Otto Klemperer said he wouldn't dare to conduct it. So I conducted it myself. It would be easy nowadays. Even the Princeton student orchestra played it a few years ago and didn't do too badly. Orchestra players get used to the idiom and people get used to listening. ... The only thing is," he added with a chuckle, "I keep getting ahead in that respect."

He was born in Brooklyn in 1896 and moved to Massachusetts at age 3, but Sessions noted that "I do have some memories of the inside of the house." He wrote his first opera at 13 and graduated from Harvard at 18. >From 1925 until 1933 he lived in Italy and Germany, supported by scholarships. Shortly after Hitler came to power, he returned to the U.S., and not long afterward joined the faculty at Princeton, where he remained until 1946. Then he taught at the University of California at Berkeley for eight years before returning to Princeton, where he remained until his mandatory retirement in 1965. Since that time he has taught at Juilliard. He and his wife Elizabeth have been married for 42 years; they have two children and two grandchildren. Said the composer: "I learned that I had a grandson just a few hours after I'd gotten the citation from the Pulitzer Prize Committee, and the grandson was much more exciting -- with all due respect."

A resident of Princeton, New Jersey except for the one night each week that he spends on the West Side, Sessions is now eagerly awaiting the performance of his ninth symphony. It was completed in October and will be premiered in Syracuse shortly.

In his Princeton study he is kept constantly busy composing new works, writing letters and correcting proofs. "I don't have any hobbies," he remarked at the end of the interview. "I like good books, but I don't get much time to read them. If I go a few days without composing, I start to feel a little bit depressed."

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EASTSIDER DICK SHAWN Veteran comic talks about Love at First Bite

5-19-79

Dick Shawn's name keeps cropping up these days. The last time he made a big splash in New York was two years ago, when his one-man show, Dick Shawn is the Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World, played at the Promenade Theatre for 14 weeks. But last fall, he gained millions of new fans with his sparkling appearances on the ill-fated network variety show starring Mary Tyler Moore, which folded after the third week. A commonly heard criticism of the show was: less Mary and more Shawn.

In George Hamilton's recently released film, Love At First Bite, Shawn plays the role of Lieutenant Ferguson, who teams up with a psychiatrist in order to make war on Dracula. Also he recently played the lead in the new Russell Baker/Cy Coleman musical, Home Again. But these are only a few of the highlights of Shawn's career, as I discover in an interview with the 51-year-old comedian at his plush Upper East Side apartment.

The word "comedian," he quickly points out, is not quite accurate. "I think of myself as a comedy character," he explains, relaxing on his couch with a plate of croissants and bacon that his pretty assistant has just brought him. "In Home Again, I played seven characters. ... They ran out of money; it just closed out of town. It needs another four or five weeks of work. They plan to bring it back around September."

With his middle-age paunch and full head of tousled grey hair that resembles a bird's nest, Shawn has a definite comedic look about him, but he seldom smiles and never laughs during our long conversation. Still, his answers are both entertaining and revealing.

On Mary Tyler Moore's variety show: "That was a total mistake. They didn't know what they were doing there. I thought she was going to get the best writers and the best producers. But it was totally inadequate. I knew from the very first day that it wasn't going to work. ... The whole concept was wrong. Variety isn't Mary's forte. You have to get yourself rolling around on the ground a little bit. She's such a nice, sweet girl that she doesn't come off as a clown."

The basis of all humor, believes Shawn, "is hostility. But it has to be sweet hostility. ... I think people become comedians because they poke fun at pretentiousness. They usually come from meager backgrounds, and then they can look up and see the pomposity and the hypocrisy of many human beings. That's why there are no rich comics. A great many of them are Jewish or black -- because as a kid they were told they were part of a minority group. They learned to have a sense of humor about themselves: they had to, in order to survive. Humor is their way of getting even with mankind."

Shawn's own background lends credence to his theory. Born Richard Schulefand in the steel town of Lackawanna, New York, he grew up in a family that was hard-hit by the Depression. While serving with the Army following World War II, he ended up in an entertainment troupe. "I was delighted," he recalls, "and when I got out, I decided to pursue it." In the early 1950s, he secured his first professional engagement as a stand-up comic in Bayonne, New Jersey, and was paid $25 a night. Since then, he has never been out of work, and has constantly used only his own material for his solo act -- songs as well as sketches.

"I don't really do jokes," he explains. "I do situation characters. Although the thrust of my humor is serious, I have always taken chances. In my club act, for example, I always ended up pretending to die on stage, rather than taking bows. Two guys would come with a stretcher and carry me out."

Among his more memorable performances over the years: the successor to Zero Mostel in Broadway's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the freakishly funny beach bum in the Stanley Kramer film It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and a cavorting Adolph Hitler in Mel Brooks' zany 1968 movie, The Producers.

Still, no project has gained him as much personal satisfaction as The Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World. After the New York run, the show played to enthusiastic audiences in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and earned Shawn awards for both Best Performer and Best Playwright of the Year.

An Eastsider for the past seven years, he names Elaine's as his favorite local restaurant because "the food is good, and there's a simplicity about the place the attracts me."

Shawn describes himself as "disciplined, but not as disciplined as I should be. Because my work is loose, I'm always adding or changing. Nothing ever stays the same. But comedy is a very rewarding profession. It's nice to know that something that pops into your head can cause a reaction from total strangers who are paying you money to be entertained. I think that's the ultimate."

Probably best-known for The Prod ucers.