This show, first broadcast on December 9, 2016, focuses on the music of a major American composer whose music is still better known to composers and musicians than it is to audiences: Ross Lee Finney (1906–1997). Although Finney is highly regarded as a teacher of composers, in this show I examine music by Finney’s teachers – Nadia Boulanger, Alban Berg, and Roger Sessions – as well as an array of outstanding scores by Finney, covering five decades of his career. Quotations from my own interviews with Finney and Sessions are included. The works played are:
ROSS LEE FINNEY
Piano Sonata No. 4 in E Major, “Christmastime 1945” (1945)
Fantasy No. 1 for organ, “So long as the mind keeps silent…” (1967)
String Quartet No. 6 in E (1950)
Narrative for cello and chamber orchestra (1976; rev. 1987)
Skating on the Sheyenne (1978)
NADIA BOULANGER
Lux Aeterna (1918)
ALBAN BERG
Zwei Leider (1907, 1925)
ROGER SESSIONS
Six Pieces for Solo Cello (1966)
Link to:
Music: SFCR Radio Shows 2012–2018
For more on these composers, see:
Music Book: Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, Second Edition
For more on Alban Berg, see:
Music: SFCR Radio Show #24, The Second Viennese School: Alban Berg and Anton Webern
Music: SFCR Radio Show #27, 20th-Century Music on the March
For more on Alban Berg, Nadia Boulanger, Ross Lee Finney, and Roger Sessions, see:
Music Lecture: “Intense Purity of Feeling”: Béla Bartók and American Music
For more on Nadia Boulanger, see:
More Cool Sites To Visit! – Music
For more on Ross Lee Finney and Roger Sessions, see:
Music Book: Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 