Roger Sessions writes "difficult" music and likes it that way. When the headlines reported MODERNIST SYMPHONY BOOED, after his first Symphony was played in Philadelphia in 1935, he was delighted. When people called his Violin Concerto unplayable, he shrugged and looked around until he found himself a fiddler who could play it. Last week in Princeton, N.J., Sessions' long (75 minutes) one-act opera, The Trial of Lucullus, got its first hearing in the East. The score was, as usual, pretty tough going, but at least nobody booed.
The opera represents a courtroom trial in...
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