Dubbed by Time magazine as “the world’s best composer of art songs,” the appellation is certainly befitting of Ned Rorem, who, with nearly 500 songs in his catalog, has easily surpassed the efforts of nearly every American composer in this genre (Charles Ives is perhaps the closest second, with nearly 200 songs in his catalog). In addition to Rorem’s extensive contribution to American song, he also penned three symphonies, four piano concertos (including one for the left hand alone), numerous choral and chamber works, ten operas, ballets, and other music for the theater. Rorem is also a prolific writer, having authored nearly twenty books, including a series of diaries and collections of lectures and criticism.
Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana on October 23, 1923. As a child he moved with his family to Chicago, where he began piano lessons. Throughout this early instruction, Rorem was exposed to the music of Debussy and Ravel, which heavily influenced the composer’s craft, especially his song composition. When he was seventeen, he entered the Music School of Northwestern University to study piano. In 1943, he was awarded a scholarship at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where he studied counterpoint with Rosario Scalero and Gian Carlo Menotti. Further study in composition was undertaken at the Juilliard School in New York, where Rorem obtained his B.A. degree in 1946 and his M.A degree in 1948. That same year, Rorem was also awarded Juilliard’s George Gershwin Memorial Prize for composition. Following graduation, Rorem worked for a time as Virgil Thomson’s copyist; he received $20 per week as well as orchestration lessons as compensation.
In 1949, Rorem moved to France, where he lived for over ten years. Experiences from this time were later chronicled in Rorem’s The Paris Diary (1966), the first in a succession of similar diaries. Although these diaries are notorious for their extreme candor, they have nonetheless received critical acclaim as some of the foremost examples in the English language of the contemporary diarist’s art. Rorem returned to the United States in 1958, where he held teaching positions at several universities, including the University of Buffalo (1959-60), the University of Utah (1965-6), and the Curtis Institute (1980-86). He remained active as a composer and in 1976 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his suite Air Music. Other honors bestowed on Rorem include a Fulbright Fellowship (1951), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1957), an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1968), three ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards, and an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement award (2003). In addition, the Atlanta Symphony’s rendition of Rorem’s String Symphony, Sunday Morning, and Eagles (1989) won the Grammy Award for Outstanding Orchestral Recording.
As far as Rorem’s songs are concerned, they display a wide variety of styles, are set to a vast number of poets, and range from short miniatures to lengthy cycles. Rorem’s earlier song settings feature texts from different literary periods, but for songs composed after 1950, Rorem generally preferred the texts of American poets, including Walt Whitman, and of 20th-century poets such as Howard Moss, Paul Goodman, Theodore Roethke, and Kenneth Koch. A master at text setting, Rorem learned early in his craft how to manipulate square phrases in the poetry, and how to make the text flow smoothly and naturally by means of syncopation, meter changes, misplaced accents, and other rhythmic devices. Equally important to his melodies are his accompaniments; Rorem is a first-rate pianist and this is reflected brilliantly in his songs. Rorem’s harmonic language mirrors those of Debussy, Stravinsky, and Hindemith; his songs often include complex chords, such as seventh, ninth, and eleventh chords, which account for the “jazz” flavor found in some of his songs. In addition, Rorem is particularly fond of using contrapuntal techniques – ground bass, ostinatos, imitation, and contrary motion – in many of his songs.
Rorem, an octogenarian who currently lives in New York City and Nantucket, is still active as a composer. In February 2007, Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music presented the premiere performance of Rorem’s opera Our Town, based on the acclaimed Thorton Wilder play of the same name. In addition, Rorem’s works continue to be heard, most recently programmed as commemorative performances. In 1998, in celebration of his seventy-fifth birthday, the New York Festival of Song gave the premiere performance of Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen, a song cycle featuring 36 poems by 24 authors, with a repeat performance later held at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium. And in 2003, in honor of the composer’s eightieth birthday, a “Roremania” festival, essentially a two-week celebration encompassing Rorem’s works in every genre, was held at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Further Reading
- McDonald, Arlys L. New Rorem: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.
- Rorem, Ned. Knowing When to Stop: A Memoir. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.