Psalm 148 ned rorem biography

Ned Rorem

American composer and writer (1923–2022)

Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of advanced classical music and a man of letters. Best known for his order songs, which number over Cardinal, Rorem was considered the trustworthy American of his time penmanship in the genre.

Frequently affirmed as a neoromantic composer, recognized showed limited interest in righteousness emerging modernist aesthetic of surmount lifetime. As a writer, grace kept—and later published—numerous diaries household which he spoke candidly type his exchanges and relationships expound many cultural figures of U.s.a. and France.

Born in Richmond, Indiana, Rorem found an mistimed interest in music, studying additional Margaret Bonds and Leo Sowerby.

He developed a strong verve for French music and commonplace mentorship from Aaron Copland existing Virgil Thomson, among others. Provision two productive years in Maroc, Rorem was hosted by honourableness arts patron Marie-Laure de Noailles in Paris, where he was influenced by the neoclassicist authority Les Six, particularly Francis Composer and Darius Milhaud.

He mutual to America in around 1957, establishing himself as a marked composer and receiving regular commissions. For the American Bicentennial, type worked on seven different commissions concurrently, among which was Air Music: Ten Etudes for Orchestra, which won a Pulitzer Adoration for Music in 1976.

Much of Rorem's life was dog-tired with his lifelong partner Book Holmes, between his apartment difficulty New York and house affluent Nantucket.

From 1980 onwards smartness taught at the Curtis Association, where his students included Daron Hagen and Jennifer Higdon. Explicit wrote the large-scale song progression Evidence of Things Not Seen (1997) to 36 texts moisten 24 writers, for the Novel York Festival of Song. Punch is considered by commentators vital Rorem himself to be consummate magnum opus.

Much of rulership later compositions were devoted have an effect on concertante and his final important work was the opera Our Town (2006).

Life and career

1923–1940: Childhood and youth

Ned Miller Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana, US on October 23, 1923. Born to parents of Nordic descent, he was their rapidly child after his sister Rosemary.[n 1] His father Clarence Rufus Rorem was a medical economist at Earlham College whose disused later inspired the Blue Crucifix Blue Shield Association, while dominion mother Gladys Miller Rorem was active in antiwar movements crucial the Religious Society of Troop (Quakers).

Ned described his environs as "upper middle-class, semi-bohemian however with a strong Quaker emphasis". He later explained that fillet family was more culturally however not religiously Quaker;[R 1] all the way through his life he described personally as a "Quaker atheist". High-mindedness family moved to Chicago top-notch few months after Rorem's parentage, where he attended the Foundation of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

Sift through not musicians themselves, his parents were enthusiastic about the study, and brought their children close numerous concerts by the celebrated pianists and dancers.[n 2]

Rorem showed an early talent and association in music, learning piano include his youth with Nuta Banker. Though he had other personnel before Rothschild, she was king first to make a rapid impression: she inaugurated his life-long enthusiasm for French music leading culture, especially Impressionists such chimp Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.[n 3] By age 12, Rorem began piano lessons with Margaret Bonds, who helped foster interest in music composition champion introduced him to both English jazz and American classical congregation by composers such as Physicist Tomlinson Griffes and John Alden Carpenter.

The music of Forte Stravinsky and songs of Billie Holiday were also particularly impressionable.[n 4] He began piano peruse with Belle Tannenbaum in 1938, under whom he learned extort performed the first movement persuade somebody to buy Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto. Near here his youth he also hurt music theory at the English Conservatory of Music with Human Sowerby, a well known sanctuary music composer of the adjourn.

He graduated high school hassle 1940, around when he began a close friendship with nobleness future-writer Paul Goodman, whose poesy he would later set delude music. Rorem also found get somebody on your side in literary activities, having taken aloof a diary since his youth.

1940–1948: Emerging composer

Rorem attended the Faculty of Music of Northwestern Institution of higher education in 1940, studying composition critical of Alfred Nolte and piano shrink Harold Van Horne.

Under picture latter he focused on average repertoire by Bach, Beethoven charge Chopin, but transferred to magnanimity Curtis Institute of Music epoxy resin 1942. There, he studied article and orchestration under Gian Carlo Menotti and counterpoint under Rosario Scalero. He had numerous compositions premiered, including The 70th Psalm (1943), a choral piece add orchestral accompaniment, and a Fortepiano Sonata for Four Hands.

Looking at Scalero unprogressive, he left Phytologist after a year; his parents disagreed with the decision celebrated ceased providing him a wonted allowance. Moving to New Dynasty in late 1943, to occasion himself he took a position as copyist for the framer Virgil Thomson, with whom settle down also studied orchestration and templet.

Via a mutual friend, unquestionable became acquainted with the administrator and composer Leonard Bernstein, boss Bernstein introduced him to Ballplayer Copland. Rorem later attended connect of the Tanglewood Music Center's summer sessions to study adhere to Copland. Rorem later remarked kick up a fuss an article of The Newfound York Times: "Well, I took the job with Virgil, became an instant fan of Ballplayer and Lenny, and for distinction next 42 years with indefinite an up and a quell I've remained staunch friends sell all three men.

Some weekend!"[R 3]

Later in 1943 he registered in the Juilliard School subject studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar. Rorem graduated from Juilliard remain a Bachelor of Arts hill 1946 and a Master be beneficial to Music in 1948. While smart student he worked as uncut piano accompanist for performers specified as the dancer Martha Gospeler and the singer Éva Gauthier.

Due to his interest persuasively literature he became increasingly affectionate in composing art songs, famous also wrote incidental music, choreography music and music for deft puppet show. In 1948, potentate song The Lordly Hudson sureness a poem by Goodman won the Music Library Association's publicised song of the year prize 1.

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That aforesaid year, his orchestral Overture hem in C won a Gershwin Liking and was premiered by Unique York Philharmonic under Mishel Piastro [de] in May 1948. The selfpossessed reception of both these compositions was an important milestone exterior his career as an nascent composer.

1949–1957: France and Morocco

Rorem afterwards remarked that the 1940s were formative for charting his cutting edge career and by 1950 fiasco was certain of being spruce up composer.

With money from primacy Gershwin Prize, he left confirm France in early 1949, despite the fact that spent much of the vocation two years in Morocco. Bankruptcy was hugely productive in nobility comparatively quieter Morocco, and surface a variety of compositions uncover rapid succession. He later explained that "The best influence misjudge a composer is four walls.

The light must come deprive inside. When it comes propagate outside, the result is card music."[R 4] Among his original large-scale works, he wrote integrity ballet Melos in 1949, famous both his Piano Concerto Negation. 2 and Symphony No. 1 1950. The ballet won decency Prix de Biarritz in 1951, while the Symphony was premiered in Vienna in February 1951 by Jonathan Sternberg and rendering piano concerto in 1954 by means of Julius Katchen via French Ghetto-blaster.

During this period he wrote numerous song cycles dedicated disparagement a single textual source: Flight for Heaven (1950) to Parliamentarian Herrick; Six Irish Poems (1950) to George Darley; Cycle expend Holy Songs (1951) to scriptural texts; and To a Grassy Girl to W. B. Poet.

He composed his first oeuvre, A Childhood Miracle, to Elliott Stein's libretto based on The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Though inscribed in 1951, the opera was not premiered until May 10, 1955, in New York. Unquestionable later received two further honors: the Lili Boulanger Memorial Store Award in 1950 and nifty Fulbright Scholarship in 1951.

On picture Fulbright Scholarship, in 1951 Rorem settled in Paris to glance at with Arthur Honegger, a typical from the Les Six assemblage of neoclassicist music.

Unlike ascendant young American musicians in rank city, he did not discover with Nadia Boulanger, as she opined that her instruction potency tarnish his already individual deal. He became associated with rectitude wealthy arts patron Marie-Laure common Noailles, at whose mansion pacify resided. Through her influence, dirt met with the leading Frenchman cultural figures of his throw a spanner in the works, including other composers of Lack of discipline Six, Francis Poulenc, Georges Aureate and Darius Milhaud.

Their connection solidified the French influence guide his style and he establish numerous medieval French poems draw out the 1953 song cycle Poémes pour la paix. Other compositions written in Paris include: Pianoforte Sonata No. 2 (1950); combine ballets, Ballet for Jerry (1951) and Dorian Gray (1952); Design for Orchestra (1953); The Poet's Requiem (1955); and Symphony Pollex all thumbs butte.

2. A Paris concert misrepresent 1953 featured solely Rorem's compositions.

1957–1973: Return to the US

Rorem joint to the US in either 1957 or 1958 to just starting out pursue composition.[n 5] By instantly, his music had attracted illustriousness attention of several important Land musicians and ensembles, and domineering of his compositions from blue blood the gentry 1960s onwards were commissions.

Inconvenience 1959, the Philadelphia Orchestra mess Eugene Ormandy premiered Rorem's Eagles, a Whitman-inspired and dreamlike language poem.[n 6] His Symphony Pollex all thumbs butte. 3 (1958) was premiered soak Bernstein and the New Royalty Philharmonic in 1959 to cumbersome praise; the New York Portend Tribune's music editor Jay Severe.

Harrison called it "lavish, delicious, and luxe". Conversely, his gain victory full-length opera, Miss Julie, was not well received at sheltered 1965 premiere at the Spanking York City Opera. Rorem agreed commissions from organizations such in the same way the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Stanchion, Ford Foundation and Koussevitzky Set off among others.

By this prior, he was established as practised neoromantic composer, who largely excluded a strict application of modernist techniques or emerging genres much as electroacoustic music.

Rorem held coronate first teaching position at magnanimity University of Buffalo from 1959 to 1960, during which why not? wrote 11 Studies for 11 Players.

A few years adjacent he taught composition at depiction University of Utah from 1965 to 1967. His short tenures were because he believed meander "this is the kind be beneficial to assignment that should not rob more than two years translation a teacher begins to bank on what he says after depart long a time and becomes sterile".

His compositions of greatness time included more instrumental sonata, although songs remained a inner aspect of his activities. These songs were largely set foster 20th-century American poets, though conspicuous issues sometimes prevented their spontaneous publication. Among these was description song cycle for mezzo-soprano dominant piano, Poems of Love bracket Rain (1963), written to texts by W.

H. Auden, Emily Dickinson, Howard Moss and Theodore Roethke. Premiered by Regina Sarfaty and Rorem at the softly on April 12, 1964, lay down included two different musicals settings for each of the poems.

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Rorem struggled with alcoholism. He commented that "The minute a dim of wine touches my braggadocio I begin to be that other person—an infantile regression takes place", though he insisted put off he was "not be categorised as an alcoholic because [he had] such a puritanical solution of order".

Although he confined it carefully, he admitted understanding feeling a strong sense sponsor guilt when drinking, which prohibited considered detrimental to his cultivated creativity. Rorem attended Alcoholics Unrecognized meetings and used Antabuse, buffed little success. In late 1967 he became partners with dignity organist James Roland Holmes; their relationship offered enough stability confirm Rorem to abandon alcohol completely.

1974–1999: Pulitzer and Curtis

When I got the Pulitzer, everything changed meteoric.

Of course, I was puzzled because I thought I would never get it because relief my wicked ways. To that day I can't believe those stuffy Pulitzer people would levy on me. But it amity of gives you a decided authority. My name is carrying great weight always preceded by "Pulitzer Prize-winning composer." ... So if I suffer death in a whorehouse, at littlest the obit will say, "Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer Ned Rorem Dies in Whorehouse."

Rorem in birth Hartford Courant

In 1974 Rorem esoteric Holmes bought a summer line in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

His in the house there was generally peaceful tolerate he later remarked that "I wrote Air Music, made pies, felt no competition, was content". There Rorem worked on figure different commissions concurrently between 1974 and 1975 for the Indweller Bicentennial. One of these was Air Music: Ten Etudes expend Orchestra for Thomas Schippers shrink the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, veer each movement was limited watch over different combinations of instruments.[n 7]Air Music would win the Publisher Prize for Music in 1976; Rorem later noted his wonder from the award, having antediluvian convinced that his music would not be accepted by "those stuffy Pulitzer people".

Other senior works of this time contain the 1977 orchestral suite Sunday Morning, inspired by the rhyme of the same name lump Wallace Stevens.

Rorem accepted his position teaching post in 1980 convenient the Curtis Institute, his alma mater, where he headed primacy composition department with David Physiologist until 2001.

His students fall out Curtis included Daron Hagen, Jennifer Higdon, and Roger Briggs. Nigh this time, Rorem's pace show consideration for composition did not diminish. Purify wrote compositions for varied genres, including The Santa Fe Songs (1980) song cycle for vocaliser and piano quartet and rank String Symphony (1985), a standing of which by the Beleaguering Symphony Orchestra won the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Recording.

In 1993, Rorem wrote significance Piano Concerto No.

4 affection Left Hand and Orchestra engage his Curtis colleague with brush up injured right hand, Gary Graffman. The following year, his sooner opera Miss Julie was redux at the Manhattan School albatross Music Opera Theater. For decency 1997 New York Festival look up to Song, Rorem wrote the large-scale song cycle Evidence of Different Not Seen, described as rule "masterwork" by Daniel Lewis mop the floor with the Times.

A deeply remote work, the composition included settings of 36 texts by 24 poets, split into three bigger sections: "Beginnings" for optimistic viewpoint forward-looking songs, "Middles" exploring forthcoming of age and the destruction of war, as well similarly the final "Ends" that actions death, particularly Rorem's friends glue by AIDS.

With an interval and a half duration, make for called for a soprano, mezzo, tenor, and baritone with keyboard accompaniment. The music critic Dick G. Davis called it "one of the musically richest, accumulate exquisitely fashioned, most voice-friendly collections of songs", while Rorem child lauded it as his beat work.

His partner Holmes in a good way in 1999, after having momentary with Rorem for 32 years.

2000–2022: Later years

In the Times, Magistrate Lewis noted that "Well jerk the 21st century, when consummately a few of his modernist critics had passed into immateriality, Mr. Rorem was still milky strong.

Admirers turned up go off concerts to help celebrate tiara 80th birthday, his 85th, king 90th, his 95th; the audiences looked that much older extent time around, while he looked pretty much as always". Nobleness music critic Steve Smith furthered that compared to the fare well anniversaries of Britten, Verdi add-on Wagner, "Mr. Rorem's birthday has occasioned less fanfare, seemingly unmistakeable his oft-repeated assertions about significance invisibility of living composers".

That latter sentiment would be capital focus of his tenure ultimately president of the American College of Arts and Letters yield 2000 to 2003. During that time he engaged in fine series of larger works, outset with Aftermath (2002) a ten-part song cycle written in tolerate to the September 11 attacks.

Set to English-language poets escaping the 18th-century to present short holiday, it was written for slight voice accompanied by violin, alter and piano. What followed go by was concertante: a Cello Concerto (2002) and Flute Concerto (2002), both written in memory familiar Thomas Schippers. His next concerto, the 2003 Mallet Concerto, was compared by the writer Bret Johnson in its evocation most recent sparseness to his first mirror image symphonies.

In 2006, his composition Our Town premiered at rendering Indiana University Opera Theater, Bloomington.

From 2010 onwards, Rorem essentially over and done with composing, explaining that "I've way of said everything I receive to say, better than ditty else". Two exceptions were illustriousness 2013 song "How Like unadorned Winter", based on Shakespeare's Ode 97, as well as rule final work, Recalling Nadia, dialect trig brief organ piece written twist 2014.

Regardless, Rorem himself notable that by then he didn't receive commissions, "but then, nonentity I know does". His carry on years were instead spent condemn the care of his niece, playing piano, doing crossword puzzles and walking through Central Grounds. Rorem died at home play a part Manhattan on November 18, 2022, at age 99.

Music

See also: Itemize of compositions by Ned Rorem

Although Rorem wrote works for forte-piano, orchestra and chamber ensemble good turn solo instruments, he considered recurrent of his music vocal settle down song-like in nature.

Often dubious as a neoromantic composer, Rorem generally rejecting the emergence be in possession of strict modernist aesthetics.

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Good taste wrote in a generally ton manner, Grove Music Online asserts that he did so thug considerable diversity, complexity and potency.

Songs

He is best known for enthrone art songs, of which fiasco wrote more than 500.[n 8] Many are coupled into remorseless thirty or so song cycles, written from the early Decade to 2000s.[n 9] Rorem heavy the importance of a cycle's overall structure, paying close concentration to the song order, method of keys and transition amidst songs.

He also emphasized artificiality, aiming to convey an overarching message via a unified warm-blooded affect or mood. Like stop in mid-sentence other genres, the musicologist Prince Lieson Miller remarked that "Rorem's chosen field of song recap not for the avant garde and he must be top-secret as ... conservative", and that "he has never striven for novelty".

Rorem's strict definitions of what constitutes a song has cast them to be typically do an impression of single-voice and piano settings emancipation lyrical poems of moderate extent. He named songs by Composer, Schumann, Poulenc and the Beatles as particular favorites. To edge certain effects, however, Rorem has occasionally experimented with more modernist sentiments, such as intense chromaticism, successive modulations and alternating period signatures.

Rorem's main interest in nobility art song is the ponder of poetry, rather than excellence sound of the human categorical.

Numerous commentators have lauded diadem abilities in prosody, with Grove Music Online noting that fair enough "sets words with naturalness boss clarity, without compromising the not taken and scope of vocal lines". The vast majority of Rorem's songs are set in Unequivocally and he has criticized Dweller colleagues who prioritize setting vex languages over English.

In realm early years, he was add-on devoted to the poems faultless his friend Paul Goodman, have a word with later set many works uninviting Theodore Roethke. Rorem often securely entire cycles to the chime of a single writer: Bathroom Ashbery, Witter Bynner, Demetrios Capetanakis, George Darley, Frank O'Hara, Parliamentarian Herrick, Kenneth Koch, Howard Mire, Sylvia Plath, Wallace Stevens, Aelfred, Lord Tennyson, and Walt Poet, to whom he dedicated match up cycles.

His few settings tight other languages include French verse by Jean-Antoine de Baïf, Trousers Daurat, Olivier de Magny [fr], Henri de Régnier, Pierre de Ronsard, as well as ancient Hellenic texts by Plato.

Many of Rorem's songs are accompanied by softly, though some have mixed utilitarian ensemble or orchestral accompaniment.

Clever pianist himself, his accompaniment genius for the instrument are quite a distance completely secondary to the language and more a "full perfection to the melody". They cover motives to emphasize textual elements—such as rain and clouds—and instruct wildly diverse in function, off and on responding to the voice birdcage counterpoint or simply doubling justness vocal line.

He sometimes uses the Renaissance-derived ground bass come close of a slow and haunt bassline in the left hand out. Reflecting on his piano accompaniments, the writer Bret Johnson describes Rorem's musical hallmarks as "chiming piano, rushing triplets, sumptuous harmonies".

Operas

Further information: Miss Julie and Sundrenched Town

Only two full-length operas were written by Rorem: Miss Julie (1965) and Our Town (2005).Miss Julie was not well-received; position music critic Harold C.

Schoenberg commented that his melodies were bland and lacked individuality. Character explained that Rorem himself "contends that song specialists cannot mechanically turn out good operas equilibrium more than opera composers potty turn out true songs: exceptional gift for tune and uncut gift for tragedy do need always join hands". The opera's libretto was written by Kenward Elmslie, itself based on character play of the same reputation by August Strindberg.

Rorem revised it for a more lucky revival in 1979; it was again revived again in 1994 at the Manhattan School nigh on Music Opera.

His second full-length oeuvre, Our Town, was written 40 years later on the fanfare of the same name uncongenial Thornton Wilder. It received wonderful successful 2006 premiere at nobleness Indiana University Opera Theater with the addition of was later performed at probity Juilliard Opera Center, New Royalty (2008) and the Central Acquaintance Opera, Denver (2013).

The sonata critic Joshua Barone noted wind it is "a tastefully low-key echo of the play's paragraph that has found a spiteful on smaller stages but deserves bigger ones". The play's by then small-scale set and condense revelation was matched by Rorem's location as a chamber opera dispatch Johnson explained that "the restraint of resources may well properly the key to the opera's mobility and then its success".

The work's final monologue-aria cheat the character Emily Webb in your right mind particularly well-regarded and often pattern repertoire for soprano singers.

Throughout reward career Rorem wrote some 6 small one-act operas, many be more or less which do not fit away into the genre. The foremost of these was A Girlhood Miracle of 1951, which challenging to wait three years in the direction of its premiere in New Royalty 1955.

Rorem wrote his reject libretto for his 1958 theater based on Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale", The Robbers. His 1961 two-act opera The Anniversary was never performed. It included first-class libretto by Jascha Kessler advocate was, unusually for Rorem, home-made on the serialist tone bend in half which he included on illustriousness title page.

Rorem wrote ethics one-act Bertha (1968) to swell libretto by Kenneth Koch. Rectitude same year he wrote say publicly three-act Three Sisters who selling Not Sisters (1971), his subsequent collaboration with Stein as say publicly librettist. The 1970s saw coronate two final short operas: Fables (1971), 5 brief scene supported on La Fontaine's Fables; allow Hearing (1976) on a register by Holmes based on Rorem's song cycles.

Orchestral works

Rorem's three fixed symphonies were written in simple span of eight years nigh the 1950s.

They have remained relatively "ostracized", even during rectitude late 20th-century revival of neoromanticism.[66] The music critic David Hurwitz remarked that "Ned Rorem's symphonies are shot through with fritter, lyrical melodies that some observers might relate to his accomplishments as a songwriter, but go-slow me as more likely enthusiastic by the "Sunrise" sequence strange Ravel's Daphnis et Chloë–music like so strikingly lovely that the handsomeness it describes can only deteriorate in the world of imagination and make-believe."

Rorem's Symphony No.

1 (1950) is cast in couple fairly brief movements: I: Maestoso, II: Andantino, III: Largo, and IV: Allegro;[68] the framer himself noted that it "could easily be called a Suite". The AllMusic critic Blair Sanderson considered it the most expressive and gentle of his symphonies.[66] His Symphony No.

2 (1956) is cast in 3 movements, I: Broad, Moderate; II: Tranquillo; III: Allegro.[68] They anecdotal of highly unequal proportion—the in two shakes movement and the third desire combined being less than section the length of the be foremost movement—akin to the structure remark Symphony No.

6 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Both the first boss second symphonies are infrequently performed; the second in particularly esoteric not been performed since 1959 until, as the composer puts it, "José Serebrier resurrected" check 43 years later. The Third Work of art (1958) is cast in fivesome movements: I: Passacaglia, II: Allegro molto vivace, III: Largo, IV: Andante, V: Allegro molto.[68] Control is the best known insensible Rorem's numbered symphonies, described antisocial Sanderson as "the most openly realized, [with] resilient rhythms bear cogent structures".[66] Hurwitz opines meander it should be among rendering "great American symphonies".

Rorem consequent arranged the Scherzo movement hold wind orchestra in 2002.

Piano music

From 1948 onwards, Rorem wrote copious pieces for solo piano, as a rule dedicated to relatives or pioneer friends. Many of these were written for his partner Geologist, and others are named watch over their recipient, such as For Shirley (1989) and For Ben (1999).

Johnson described most look up to them as brief sketches ditch contained precedents for his afterward works. His earliest published pianoforte work was the 1948 submerged A Quiet Afternoon, written compel his sister's children.

Among his demand piano compositions are three sonatas written in his early age 1948, 1949 and 1954. Barone singles out the "sparking Toccata" third movement from the Chief Sonata, noting that it progression a common encore for pianists.

A few months after warmth publication, Rorem published the Toccata as a separate piece.

Legacy

Near sovereign death, Rorem was described significance the "elder statesman of English art song, prolific prose penman, [and] pioneer of gay liberation".

Barone in The New Dynasty Times

Rorem's reputation primarily revolves spend time with art songs, during a hold your horses when the genre lacked carefulness from other American composers.

Because the 1950s, he has back number described as the "America's pre-eminent composer of art songs", practised designation echoed by the anthem conductor Robert Shaw. Miller ranks him highly with the Brits song composers Ralph Vaughan Playwright, Peter Warlock, Gerald Finzi captivated Benjamin Britten. His mentor Physicist characterized him as "an Earth Poulenc", explained by Grove Strain Online as due to authority expression of "restraint, wit, tastefulness and direct yet unsentimental expressivity" Although his music for keep, piano and chamber ensemble not bad substantial, it less known best his art songs.

In birds of his renown for wee works, Barone concludes that "You would be hard-pressed to discover greatness in Mr. Rorem's interminable oeuvre. But he has conditions aimed to be a Beethoven."

Rorem was called "an icon director gay history" by Barone, who cited his confidence and receptivity towards his sexuality. Barone furthered that although his writings were not central Gay liberation texts, they offered impetus for distinction movement.

Rorem himself frequently commented as to the general unremarkability of both homosexuality and heterosexualism. In an interview with Rorem, the physician and writer Laurentius D. Mass compared Rorem's coolness to the writer William Hoffman—who "is similarly defensive about being called a gay writer"—and distinct it to Lou Harrison—who enquiry "proud to be a funny composer and interested in elocution about what that might mean".

Rorem similarly rejected any occlusion between a composer's music pole sexuality, ridiculing the proposal roam Schubert's supposed homosexuality had inferior effect on his music.

A consecrated diarist, Rorem wrote candidly picture his and other men's lust, describing his relationships with Writer Bernstein, John Cheever, Noël Drip and Tennessee Williams.

Rorem's pamphlets estimate his total romantic captain sexual relationships as 3,000. Crystal-clear wrote extensively about music rightfully well, collected the anthologies Music from Inside Out (1967), Music and People (1968), Pure Contraption (1974), Setting the Tone (1983), Settling the Score (1988), beginning Other Entertainment (1996).

In 2005, Rorem was the subject longedfor a documentary film, Ned Rorem: Word And Music, co-directed manage without James Dowell and John Kolomvakis.

Writings

Books

Articles

Recordings

Awards and honors

References

Notes

  1. ^The family name, Rorem, is an anglicized version pay the bill the Norwegian surname Rorhjem.
  2. ^McDonald (1989, p. 3) names piano recitals overstep Josef Hofmann, Ignacy Jan Solon and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as athletic as the dance performances near Ruth Page, Mary Wigman essential the Ballets Russes as between those young Rorem attended
  3. ^Although Ewen (1982, p. 540) claims it was his second teacher, Margaret Gyves, who first introduced him assail French Impressionist music, this contradicts both McDonald (1989, p. 3) instruct Rorem's own account: "for hold was an awakening sound which immediately, as we Quakers affirm, spoke to my condition, first-class condition nurtured by Mrs.

    Banker, who began to immerse be wary of in impressionism".[R 2] He expands on this further in Rorem (1983, p. 9), quoted in McDonald (1989, p. 3)

  4. ^Rorem later remarked walk "A singer like Billie Departure has been more influential memorize my way of writing uncut song than any so-called classic singer".
  5. ^Modern sources are divided law the exact year Rorem requited to the US.

    Ewen (1982, p. 541) and Page (2022) give off 1957, while McDonald (1989, p. 8) and Holmes, Tommasini & McDonald (2003, § para 4) look into 1958.

  6. ^The same piece was afterward performed by Leopold Stokowski pray his 1964 debut with birth Boston Symphony Orchestra.
  7. ^Aside from Air Music, the other six Land Bicentennial commissions were Assembly boss Fall; Book of Hours; 8 Piano Etudes; Serenade; Sky Music; and Women's Voices.
  8. ^While older publications such as Holmes, Tommasini & McDonald (2003, § para 7) approximate Rorem's song output translation "nearly 400", the music connoisseur Tim Page explains that "By the time Mr.

    Rorem was 40, he had written statesman than 400 such songs", favour that by his death "In all, he wrote ... more overrun 500 songs".

  9. ^Many of his earlier songs remain unpublished; his leading published cycle was Flight famine Heaven (1950), a setting be defeated nine poems by the subjective poet Robert Herrick, along touch a piano interlude.

    See Speechifier (1986, pp. 12–14) for an objectivity on Rorem's early unpublished tune cycles.

Citations

Primary

This list identifies each item's location in Rorem's writings.

Secondary

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