Roger Sessions - Major Works

Major Works

• Symphony No. 1 (1927)
• The Black Maskers Orchestral Suite (1928)
• Piano Sonata No. 1 (1930)
• Violin Concerto (1935)
• String Quartet No. 1 (1936)
• Duo for Violin and Piano (1942)
• From my Diary (Pages from a Diary) (1940)
• Piano Sonata No. 2 (1946)
• Symphony No. 2 (1946)
• The Trial of Lucullus (1947), one-act opera
• String Quartet No. 2 (1951)
• Sonata for Solo Violin (1953)
• Idyll of Theocritus (1954)
• Piano Concerto (1956)
• Symphony No. 3 (1957)
• String Quintet (1957 or 1957–58)
• Symphony No. 4 (1958)
• Divertimento for Orchestra (1959)
• Montezuma (ca. 1940–1962, 1940s–1962, orchestration finished 1963, 1935–63, or 1941–64), opera in three acts (libretto by Giuseppe Antonio Borgese)
• Symphony No. 5 (1964)
• Piano Sonata No. 3 (1965)
• Symphony No. 6 (1966)
• Six Pieces for Violoncello (1966)
• Symphony No. 7 (1967)
• Symphony No. 8 (1968)
• Rhapsody for Orchestra (1970)
• Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, and Orchestra (1971)
• When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (1971)
• Concertino for Chamber Orchestra (1972)
• Five Pieces for Piano (1975)
• Symphony No. 9 (October 1978)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1981)
• Duo for Violin and Violoncello (1981), incomplete

Some works received their first professional performance many years after completion. The Sixth Symphony (1966) was given its first complete performance on March 4, 1977 by the Juilliard Orchestra in New York City.

The Ninth Symphony (1978), commissioned by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and Frederik Prausnitz, was premiered on January 17, 1980 by the same orchestra conducted by Christopher Keene.