Dear listers, I apologize for not being more elaborate this time, but I
would like to say that it is quite possible to immensely enjoy Sessions's
music without being a proponent of atonality or 12-tone music per se.  I
certainly do mind when music is dull -- and Sessions's music definitely
does not sound dull to me -- but I do not spend my time wondering which
technique is being used, or what Sessions might have wanted to convey,
while listening to his violin concerto, his 4th or his 7th symphony, or
his Requiem (When Lilacs...).  I am, quite simply (but not simplistically),
struck by the wealth of beauty offered by each of these masterpieces, or
so they sound to me.

While Stirling Newberry certainly is not "wrong" not to like Sessions,
anybody who truly likes and admires this composer is entitled to evoke his
range, not just intellectual but musical and artistic, to put it plainly.
I do not think that Sessions will gain a very wide audience before long,
but I do believe that many listeners still ignore his music for reasons
which owe much more to the lack of curiosity and to prejudice than to
Sessions's intrinsic qualities and creative power.  Quite a few among
those listeners would probably be overwhelmed by his music, and for those
people, Stirling's pertinent views cannot be adopted as their own views.

Best wishes,

Thanh-Tam Le
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