NED ROREM
Songwriter and philosopher
Dr David C F Wright
I have no hesitation in declaring that
Ned Rorem is the finest song composer
since Hugo Wolf and that Wolf was the
first great song composer. Now in his
78th year, Ned has written some 400
songs. Take as an example the song ‘Early
in the morning’ to a text by Robert
Hillier. It is simple, beautiful, direct
and quite lovely. And unmusical expressions
and phrases such as 'I am breakfasting
upon croissants' do not sound banal.
And Rorem sincerely values several
singers who have performed his songs
such as Susan Graham whom he states
is "a real singer with impeccable diction,
a beautiful voice and highly intelligent."
She used to sing in a choir directed
by Jim Holmes, a very special friend
of the composer.
Rorem has divided his living between
Paris and New York. It could be said
of him that he is the American
in Paris. He has been described as the
first successful modern Romanticist,
a very stupid title which he naturally
rejects. He once said that musical aesthetics
hovered between French and German cultures
but with his typical humour he remarked
that the French are profoundly superficial
and the Germans superficially profound.
The French are usually economical in
their music but the Germans go on for
ever. In that dry humour of his he said
that even German jokes go on for ever
and that Germans hate being disagreed
with. They snap, "If you disagree it
is because you are not German." Hence,
Rorem has chosen to be French.
From an adolescent he was fascinated
by all things French. He discovered
Debussy and Ravel and said, "this is
what music is about not those boring
inventions by Bach and inane baroque
ornamentation."
The poet Paul Goodman has been an important
part of his life. He was the first poet
he met and they became great friends.
What was so inspiring about Goodman
was that he was 'powerfully intellectual'
and Rorem has said this is a great asset
to understanding the arts, whether it
is literature, painting or music. He
also said that there are so many music
lovers who are still shallow because
they have not adopted, or not allowed
themselves to adopt the higher planes
of music education, but just state the
glib and rather foolish statement, "I
know what I like and that's all that
matters!" Nothing could be further from
the truth.
The song ‘The Lordly Hudson’ is Rorem's
first Goodman setting. It won the Musical
Library Citation for the best published
song of 1948. The composer said that
the French write slushy songs about
Paris as a beautiful place and where
romance blossoms on the banks of the
Seine. Rorem wrote about the banks of
the Hudson and there is no slush or
sentiment here. It is a super song and
was Rorem's first acknowledged success.
He is also a writer and his diary and
memoirs shocked the public and yet his
music is never shocking. He wrote the
music he wanted to write. He was never
crushed into someone else's mould.
When young he was concerned with what
he should be. He loved the arts. He
explained to us once that Americans
love to specialise whereas Europeans
have fingers in every pie. There the
composers are expected to write in all
forms to make a living. It was so in
Bach's time.
Although a song composer it was not
the human voice that enthralled him
and he says that remains the case today.
It was the craft of setting what he
loved (poetry) and imposing it on the
other art he loves (music).
Everything he writes whether vocal,
instrumental or orchestral is vocal
in the sense that inside every composer
is a singer who wants to get out. He
also expresses the view that all music
is song even that sung by cavemen ...
an interesting thought! He adds that
with words the structure is already
there but with a symphony or a concerto
you have to make the structure.
This is demonstrated in his nine minute
orchestral piece ‘Eagles’ which is based
on Walt Whitman's poem ‘The Dalliance
of Eagles’ in which the music is an
equivalent of the words. Even the eagles
copulating in the air is dramatically
portrayed in this special music. At
times it is ethereal, dramatic, majestic
and slightly under-stated. The soaring
eagles are magnificently portrayed by
impressive high string writing. Perhaps
the fluttering of wings is graced by
the harp passages. There is a wonderful
nostalgia here with the wide open spaces
of the Old West and the undisturbed
lives of the native Americans. There
are some sumptuous sounds but the music
is never exaggerated. And the aggressive
character of this marvellous bird of
prey in captured in primitive sounds.
The force of nature is realised as is
the freedom of this majestic bird in
the air.
Less successful is ‘Air Music’ for
orchestra commissioned by the conductor
Thomas Schippers. Nevertheless it won
the Pulitzer Price probably because
it broke the stylistic mould. It is
another one of Rorem's multi-movement
works. There are ten of them and while
the composer says that they reflect
each other there is often a sense of
a lack of purpose and no obvious direction.
At its best it reminded me of Webern's
superlative Six Pieces, Op. 6, but it
does not have the originality of those
little masterpieces. Yet Rorem's work
is not difficult on the ear. The work
begins with a lovely violin singing
and the expert use of tuned percussion.
There is a section with swirling woodwind
which aspect recurs throughout the piece.
At its first appearance over low notes
and pedal notes it is quite impressive.
There are movements which could pass
for miniature concertos for the violin,
cello and viola respectively. Other
movements seem to be orchestral studies.
There are four string quartets. The
first was written when Rorem was an
undergraduate and is lost. The String
Quartet no. 2 dates from 1950 and was
composed in Morocco. The composer completed
the String Quartet no. 3 and was almost
immediately asked by the Emerson Quartet
for a string quartet. To write two in
quick succession is not easy and so
for his String Quartet no. 4 Rorem took
eight paintings of Picasso and used
these visual impulses to compose this
work. The sixth movement is called ‘Self
Portrait’, the composer explaining that
all artistes are self portraits thus
endorsing what I have always said that
a composer's music is the composer himself
and therefore to understand the composer
and his lifestyle is to understand the
music that he writes.
It is difficult writing a string quartet
since it is one of the most intimate
genres and so much has been written
in this form. In modern times the quartets
of Bacewicz and Bartók have no
equal. Rorem has said that the challenge
is to make interesting sounds on the
same canvas.
The movements of the String Quartet
no. 4 are :
1. Minotaur
2. Little Girl holding a dove.
3. Acrobat on a ball
4. Seated Harlequin
5. Hand of a boy
6. Self Portrait
7. Three nudes
8. Death of Harlequin.
I do not respond to this work. It is
episodic and, in my view, not integrated.
I think Peter Racine Fricker was the
first composer to write a Cor Anglais
Concerto although he did call it a Concertante.
In the early 1990s the New York Philharmonic
commissioned several concertos for the
principals in the orchestra to play.
Thomas Stacey was the cor anglais principal
and Rorem wrote a five movement concerto
for him. The central movement, Recurring
Dream, has an atmosphere but the music
is rather staid. There is an important
part for two oboes which the composer
refers to as the cor anglais's nephews.
Ned Rorem has had a long association
with the American singer, Phyllis Curtin,
whom he first encountered in 1946. He
wrote his four psalm settings for her
in a Paris hotel room in 1950. He called
them ‘Cycle of Holy Songs’. Curtin speaks
of Rorem as "a remarkable composer"
and "without composers like Ned we singers
would have nothing at all."
Sadly, Rorem is an atheist. He could
not be a Christian since Christianity
condemns homosexuality and therefore
condemns him. Yet, paradoxically, Rorem
believes in belief although he has no
religious beliefs of his own.
Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana
in 1923. He studied in Chicago and at
the Curtis Institute before moving to
the Juilliard School in New York where
he had lessons in composition with Wagenaar.
He was a paid copyist for the composer
Virgil Thomson who was also homosexual
and decidedly unorthodox. Thomson would
also go to concerts overdressed with
a long black cape with brilliant red
lining, a top hat and a cane with a
silver top and act in a most eccentric
fashion treating everyone including
his cab driver as if he were a royal
and merited their adulation and subservience.
As Ned became very outspoken and sometimes
outrageous one wonders what influence
Thomson had on him.
His love of France was such that he
lived there from 1949 to 1958 and often
in French Morocco. Here he studied with
Poulenc, Auric and Milhaud being totally
absorbed in all things French. The suggestion
that his love of song was attributable
to the direct influence of Poulenc is
not true and yet another myth that seems
to be accepted as a truth. From there
he went to Buffalo University as a professor
of composition and to Utah University
from 1965 to 1967 in a similar capacity.
It was at this time, in 1966 in fact,
that he wrote his text book, The Paris
Diary of Ned Rorem, which caused a tremendous
stir.
Sadly, apart from ‘Miss Julie’, I do
not know his operas which include:
A Childhood Miracle (1952)
The Robbers (1956)
Last Day (1959)
The Anniversary (1962)
Fables (five miniature operas in one
) (1970)
Miss Julie (1964)
Bertha (1968)
Three Sisters who are not sisters (1969)
‘Miss Julie’ is a two act opera after
the play by August Strindberg with a
libretto by Kenward Elmslie which was
first produced in New York in 1965 to
critical acclaim.
There are three numbered symphonies
and a later symphony for strings which
the composer admits he should have entitled
‘Symphony no. 4’. I also have recordings
of the premieres of his two recent Double
Concertos.
But it is his songs that are so impressive
and none more so that the cycle ‘Poems
of Love and the Rain’.
Other articles by David
Wright are listed here.
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