Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1881 by Henry Lee Higginson. Symphony Hall has been its home since 1900, and Tanglewood in the Berkshires its summer base. Serge Koussevitzky led it from 1924 to 1949 and Seiji Ozawa from 1973 to 2002. Under Ozawa it recorded American works for New World Records, among them Roger Sessions's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and music by Olly Wilson and John Harbison.
Sinfonia / Symphony No. 1
John Harbison's music draws together gestures and ideas from musical worlds that reflect such favorite composers as Robert Schumann and Heinrich Schutz, the songs of George Gershwin, and the hieratic qualities of Igor Stravinsky. His work has always …
Piano Concerto
The Piano Concerto was Peter Lieberson's first orchestral work and was, from the outset, conceived with Peter Serkin in mind as the soloist. He wrote it after a long period of immersion in the study of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. Throughout what Lieb…
When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd
Of the numerous settings of Walt Whitmans poetry, and this poem in particular, Sessions's is generally agreed to be one of the very finest and most sensitive. His mature style - a highly personal, instantly recognizable mix of severity and control w…