Ned Rorem celebrates his 90th birthday today (October 23). To mark this major milestone we revisit a Gramophone Collection by Andrew Farach-Colton which first appeared in our October 2003 issue. And as a postscript we've added a few reviews of discs released in the last decade.

Ned Rorem has been hailed as ‘the world’s best composer of art songs’ (a munificent assessment by Time magazine that Rorem repeats in his own press bio – and who can blame him?). Of course, Rorem is also known, and perhaps even better known, as a diarist. His first book, The Paris Diary (written in the early 1950s, but not published until 1966), was something of a succès de scandale, not only because he wryly recounts his associations with Cocteau, Gide, Poulenc, and other luminaries of French arts and letters, but because he wrote about his homosexual love affairs with such openness.

Rorem is, in fact, a marvellous writer, and it’s difficult to resist the temptation to compare his music and prose, for he uses words and notes with the same pithy elegance and expressive clarity. The writing often illuminates the music, too, and his Wildean aphorisms provide a useful overview of his aesthetic:

‘Originality is at best a minor virtue. Anyone can build a better mousetrap, but it still snares the same old mice.’

‘Minor artists borrow, great ones steal. All art is clever theft.’

‘My nature prefers minor artists to the makers of Big Statements, which is why I’m drawn to French more than to German music.’

Would we view Rorem’s music differently if the composer had not written so voluminously and so well? Who can say? Rorem’s reputation has likely been enhanced by his books, but certainly the music can stand on its own merits. Indeed, while The Paris Diary is still a good read, it’s probably a less important book than it once was. Rorem’s music, on the other hand, is increasingly important. An outspoken critic of serialism, Rorem has never been ashamed of writing music that’s pleasing to the ear. And, while he has clearly kept abreast of the music of his contemporaries, his own style has remained remarkably consistent.

Surprisingly, given the craftsmanship and attractiveness of his music, Rorem has not proven to be the most ‘phonogenic’ of composers, largely because of his avowed antipathy to making ‘Big Statements’ – which is why his music has been taken up primarily by smaller record labels. Still, there are too many discs to do justice to in a Gramophone Collection, so this is intended to provide a mere overview, pointing to highlights of Rorem’s discography. Both US and UK releases have been included, and while some are currently unavailable,
it seemed wise to err on the side of inclusiveness, given that yesterday’s deletion may well be tomorrow’s reissue.

Orchestral Music

Rorem may be best known as a song composer, though he has written prolifically in almost every genre. Yet Rorem himself admits that he conceives of all of his music vocally, ‘as though they were songs – like settings of words that aren’t there.’ Even his large-scale instrumental and orchestral works tend to be made up of short, descriptive movements rather than big-boned sonata structures.

Hot off the press is a Naxos disc with José Serebrier and the Bournemouth Symphony’s vivacious accounts of the three symphonies, an extremely important release since neither the First (1951) nor the Second (1956) have been previously recorded. The two early symphonies are remarkably unpretentious yet just weighty enough to justify their titles. One detects Virgil Thomson’s influence (during the late 1940s, Rorem served as Thomson’s copyist in exchange for orchestration lessons), not only in the sing-songy, folksy character of many of the tunes, but in the lucidity of the scoring.

The Third Symphony (1958), in five movements, is far more substantial and traditionally symphonic, with a motivically taut opening passacaglia, a rambunctious scherzo and a swaggering rondo-finale. It’s the two adjacent slow movements, tender and piquantly harmonised, that sound most recognisably Roremesque, however. The Third was recorded by Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony in the early 1970s – a thin-toned account – and the New York Philharmonic has recently made available the première performance under Bernstein (part of its 10-disc American Celebration set), but Serebrier’s version has the dual benefit of easy availability and good sound quality.

My vote for Rorem’s orchestral masterpiece goes to Eagles, also from 1958. Inspired by a Whitman text, it begins with music of rugged grandeur and soaring lyricism, then gradually begins an ever more ecstatic dance – ‘four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling’ – ending with a suddenly quiet, upward swoop. In a better world, such an evocative, stirring score would be in the repertory of every American orchestra. The Atlanta Symphony’s recording of Eagles is more sumptuous than the Louisville Orchestra’s, and the ASO offers more appealing couplings: the delightfully luxurious String Symphony (1985) and the un-flashy showpiece Sunday Morning (1977), ‘a non-literal, dreamlike recollection of Wallace Stevens’ long poem.’ If you’re curious to hear Air Music (1974), the work that won Rorem the Pulitzer Prize, it’s on the Louisville CD with Eagles, and though the orchestral virtuosity required is similar to that in Sunday Morning, I don’t find its often clangorous sounds to be among the composer’s most compelling.

Like Eagles, the Violin Concerto (1985) is undervalued. It’s a work whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts – which, in fact, is something that could be said of much of the composer’s instrumental music. As in the Third Symphony, the emotional core consists of two adjacent slow movements – one more beautiful than the next – though, unlike the symphony, Rorem ends the
concerto with still more slow music. He maintains a high level of tension to the very end, however, and the concerto can have a powerful effect, as Gidon Kremer demonstrates in his recording with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.

For more recent Rorem, try the spiky Piano Concerto for Left Hand (1994), recorded by Gary Graffman, coupled with the balletic Eleven Pieces for Eleven Players (1960), or the elegiac Cor Anglais Concerto (1993), with its wistful quotations of Satie, exquisitely played by Thomas Stacy.

Chamber Music

Surprisingly, the most recorded of Rorem’s non-vocal works is the trio End of Summer (1985). It’s an effective piece, but perhaps its popularity reflects its scoring for violin, clarinet and piano, a combination for which there seems to be increasing demand. The opening Capriccio dramatically juxtaposes churning passages of quasi-Bartókian figuration with graceful strands of nostalgic melody, à la Poulenc – a technique common to much of Rorem’s recent work. Brahms haunts the central Fantasy in wispy quotations of the Clarinet Quintet, and the final Mazurka again recalls Poulenc. The finest of the three available recordings is by the Fibonacci Sequence, and their disc is also worthwhile for its taut performance of Bright Music (1987), a five-movement suite for flute, two violins, cello and piano that begins playfully and gradually turns more serious, concluding with a riff on the grim finale of Chopin’s Funeral March Sonata.

Bright Music is also fetchingly played by the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Society, coupled with another quintet, Winter Pages (1981), scored for clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello and piano. Rorem freely describes the 12 movements as songs without words, and says the mood of each reflects the changing weather during the time of composition – from January to May.

Two works for violin and piano are also, in essence, suites of songs without words – and virtuosic ones at that. Day Music (1971) and Night Music (1972) were composed back-to-back, and though each consists of eight brief ‘études’, they hang together as well as many large-scale sonatas. The works appear together on a Phoenix CD. This small US label has rescued several landmark Rorem recordings, including these sinewy, electric performances by Jaime and Ruth Laredo, and Earl Carlyss and Ann Schein, respectively.

Only two of Rorem’s four mature string quartets are available on disc. The Third (1991) is amongst his most challenging scores. Layers of counterpoint in the opening chaconne create an atmosphere of intense dissonance that one does not ordinarily associate with this composer. There are moments of respite, like the sarabande nestled in the middle of the prickly scherzo movement, but the overall tone is dark and uncompromising, and those who think Rorem’s music lacks backbone are urged to hear it. The Mendelssohn Quartet’s account is suitably intense, and is made more attractive by its unexpected pairing with the magnificent orchestral song-cycle Sun.

Rorem admitted to having had second thoughts about identifying the ten Picasso paintings that ‘impelled’ his Fourth Quartet (1994), and he was right. Poetic ideas are malleable enough not to interfere with one’s appreciation of a musical work and often serve as an enhancement, but the evocation of specific visual images is another matter. I don’t want to ‘see’ Picasso’s forms and colours in my mind’s eye. Having said that, I am moved by much of the music, and especially by the yearning serenity of ‘Still Life’ and the beatific threnody for the ‘Death of Harlequin.’ I also admire the Emerson’s chiselled and thoroughly unsentimental interpretation.

Instrumental Music

Rorem is a superb pianist so it is odd that his output includes so few solo works for the instrument. Philips’ Great Pianists series resurrected Julius Katchen’s scampering account [now also available in a Decca Katchen set] of the Sonata No 2 – an overly sweet confection – as well as Leon Fleisher’s gruff performance of three brief but endearing barcarolles. There isn’t much more than that, alas.

The organ music has fared better, and there’s more of it. Pride of place goes to Catherine Crozier’s magisterial interpretations of A Quaker Reader (1976) and Views From the Oldest House (1981), sumptuously recorded by Delos. The former collection is notable for its utter lack of spiritual pretension and its emphasis on the personal rather than the epic; the latter is a series of highly atmospheric, neo-Impressionist tone paintings. Ronald Prowse’s recital features somewhat newer works, including Organbook III (1989) and Six Pieces (1997); Prowse’s playing tends toward stodginess but he cannot bear all of the blame for the music’s general lack of freshness.

Vocal music

Rorem has written several operas, though he’s said outright that opera is not really his thing, and I’m not going to disagree. One finds far more dramatic acuity and rich characterization in the orchestral song-cycle Sun (1966), for example, than in his only full-length opera Miss Julie (1965). In the cycle, eight poems by different poets are melded into a scorching, 28-minute-long movement – a tour-de-force both for the orchestra and the soprano soloist. Lauren Flanigan sings it for all it’s worth (on the aforementioned disc with the Third Quartet), and the Orchestra of the Manhattan School of Music acquit themselves admirably, though one longs to hear, say, the Chicago Symphony dig into the score.

And one should not discuss Rorem’s oeuvre and neglect his choral music, though sadly it is not served well on disc. Concora, a Connecticut-based choir, offers a well-chosen selection of shorter pieces, both sacred and secular, but their performances are woolly. The Gregg Smith Singers recorded Letters From Paris (1966), In Time of Pestilence (1973) and the Missa brevis (1973). Microphone placement is too close for comfort, but the interpretations are first rate, and one hopes Vox will return them to the catalogue soon. For the moment, the best recording of a Rorem choral work is Pilgrim Strangers (1984) sung by Chanticleer on the album ‘With a Poet’s Eye’. It’s initially disconcerting to hear Whitman’s gruesome text (recounting his experiences as a nurse during the US Civil War) intoned with such beauty and refinement, but the intensity is there, too, and one is quickly drawn in.

Rorem had set other sections of this same Whitman text for solo baritone in his 1969 cycle War Scenes, written to protest US involvement in Vietnam. The cycle was recorded that same year by Donald Gramm and pianist Eugene Istomin, and Phoenix has reissued it and a group of five other less harrowing Whitman settings, along with the ‘vaudevillian’ Four Dialogues for two voices and two piano (the latter a collaboration with poet Frank O’Hara). The dialogues haven’t aged so well – they might make a stronger impression in a live cabaret setting – but War Scenes is powerful stuff. Rorem conveys a sense of horror without abandoning lyricism, which is, after all, what makes Whitman’s prose-poetry so potent. With Gramm’s inky black tone, stentorian authority and deep humanity, the effect is overwhelming.

Another indispensable reissue from Phoenix offers Poems of Love and the Rain (1963) featuring another greatly underrated singer of the 1960s and ’70s, mezzo-soprano Beverly Wolff. Rorem claims to have little concern with originality, yet this cycle is not merely original but clever – a set of eight American poems, each sung twice in entirely different settings. Arranged like a palindrome around a interlude, it is an overt display of compositional virtuosity, though no less effective for it. ‘I wished for the singer to arrive on stage one person, and to leave it another,’ Rorem writes. Wolff does just that, aided in
no small part by the emotional directness of the composer’s piano playing. With so many fine mezzos out there these days, this cycle should be a repertory staple. The disc is filled out with four madrigals (1947) and From an Unknown Past (1951), a set of sweetly archaic-sounding a cappella songs for four voices, sung by the Modern Madrigal Quartet.

Rorem recently adapted From an Unknown Past for solo voice and chamber orchestra at the request of Brian Asawa, and the countertenor’s bright, boyish tone suits the music well. The same cannot be said for the cycle More Than a Day (1995), however. Asawa sings with a wide-eyed, almost pre-pubescent wonder, where the music – particularly the long opening section, ‘Do I love you?’ – demands a voice of rich maturity. Asawa does sing the two concluding songs beautifully, though, and Jeffrey Kahane elicits warmly affectionate accompaniments from the Los Angeles CO.

Also problematic is a CRI recording preserving the première performance of The Nantucket Songs (1979), sung a little too feverishly (literally) by Phylis Bryn-Julson, with the composer at the piano. (Rorem reports that he and the soprano were both ill that night.) A few of the more dramatic songs in Women’s Voices (1975) actually require overheating, but Catherine Ciesinski’s tone is rather too tremulous. The disc is still significant, both for the inclusion of six early songs authoritatively sung by Phyllis Curtin and Donald Gramm, as well for Some Trees (1968), three John Ashbery settings for vocal trio, where Curtin and Graham are joined by Beverly Wolff.

Rorem may dislike Big Statements, but there’s really no other way to describe Evidence of Things Not Seen (1997). This evening-long cycle of 36 songs (solos, duets, trios and quartets) forms what might be called The Art of the Song – and that, in fact, was the working title. To put it simply: the quality of the music exceeds even the high expectations one has for such an undisguised magnum opus. Here are some of the most gorgeous of all of Rorem’s songs – ‘The Rainbow’ (Wordsworth), ‘Requiescat’ (Wilde), ‘The Sick Wife’ (Kenyon)… there are too many to mention here. As for the performances, I have more admiration for some of the individual voices of the New York Festival of Song than for others, but the ensemble work is impeccable and the total effect magnificent.

And finally, a pair of all-Rorem song recital albums. Given Rorem’s status in this genre, one would expect there to be more than two such collections of individual songs on disc, but at the moment we only have Carole Farley’s and Susan Graham’s. Farley has the benefit of Rorem’s piano playing, and one can understand why the composer admires her, for she savours the texts as much as the music. But while much of her singing is lovely – some of it luminous, even – there are times when her voice frays. In a song like ‘Spring’, for instance, one wants the skipping melody to be negotiated more nimbly. Susan Graham’s recital, on the other hand, may well be the most splendid Rorem recording of all. Her soft, sustained singing is mesmeric, and while the programme favours the lyrical over the declamatory – Farley offers a fairer balance – I’m not complaining. Ideally, I would have preferred to have Rorem at the piano, as Malcolm Martineau is too deferential. But there is no more alluring introduction to Rorem’s art than this, and one hopes that there is more to come. Poems of Love and the Rain, perhaps?

The Essential Rorem

Rorem has said that if his house were burning and he could grab only three records, they would all be Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. I think I’ve made it clear that anyone who cares about song should have Graham’s recital in their collection, although it certainly should not be the only one. I would not want to be without Beverly Wolff’s recording of Poems of Love and the Rain, for example – even if Graham eventually records it – not only because it’s my favourite Rorem cycle but because the beauty of Wolff’s performance runs so deep. Evidence of Things Not Seen is arguably even more essential, standing as it does at the summit of the composer’s almost six-decade-long songwriting career. Otherwise, however, the lack of Big Statements in Rorem’s output makes it difficult to single out individual pieces and recordings; better to sample where one’s interest is piqued. I would, however, put in a special plea for Eagles, an eight-minute jewel of a piece that grows in stature with each hearing. 

Postcript: A selection of discs released and reviewed after Andrew Farach-Colton's survey

Rorem Piano Concerto No 2. Cello Concerto. 

Simon Mulligan pf Wen-Sinn Yang vc Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Jose Serebrier

Naxos American Classics 8 559315 (59' • DDD)

How remarkable that two such delectable concertos should be receiving their world premieres on disc. Unapologetically romantic and accessible, those qualities may well have mitigated against acceptance among the industry's fashion-mongers. The Second Piano Concerto (1951) was written for Julius Katchen (also the dedicatee of Rorem's attractive Second Piano Sonata) and was given its first performance by that superb pianist in 1954. Since then it has lain dormant until its present revival by Simon Mulligan whose brilliance, ideally matched by Jose Serebrier, is worthy of Katchen himself. Here, the ghosts of Ravel, Françaix, Gershwin, Stravinsky and, most of all, Poulenc, jostle for attention. Yet Rorem's idiom is as personal as i t is cruc. The final pages of the central 'Quiet and Sad' movement, where the piano weaves intricate tracery round the orchestral theme, may owe mum to the Adagio assai from Ravel's G major Concerto but it maintains its own character. The finale, 'Real Fast', is an irresistible tour de force played up to the hilt by Mulligan. 

In the Cello Concerto Rorem happily eschews a conventional form, giving programmatic subtitles to each section. These range from 'Curtain Raise' to 'Adrift', offering Wen-Sinn Yang a rich opportunity, whether playing primus inter pares or revelling in Rorem's alternating nostalgia and effervescence. Finely recorded, it's a clear winner for the Naxos American Classics series. Bryce Morrison

Rorem Flute Concerto. Violin Concerto. Pilgrims

Jeffrey Khaner fl Philippe Quint vn Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / José Serebrier 

Naxos American Classics 8 559278 (63' • DDD) 

Ned Rorem's position in the CD catalogue has improved recently thanks to José Serebrier. On a previous Naxos release (see above) he celebrated Rorem's 80th birthday with all three symphonies, dating from the 1950s - inexplicably they had hardly been performed in the intervening period. Their expansive scope contradicts the image of Rorem as a song specialist, although his 300 songs are widely admired. His often scintillating chamber music is another aspect of his large output that should not be ignored. And then there are the operas... 

Pilgrims, for strings, comes from the same decade as the symphonies. It's not a patriotic celebration of the founding fathers but arises from the Bible via a novel by Julien Green and creates an austere commentary on a young suicide. 

Rorem admits that he found it hard to give the right title to the two concertos. 'Suite' could be more apt since each has six movements, some with evocative titles, all in his discursive approach to the whole idea of concerto. The surefire song composer emerges in the 2002 Flute Concerto with a pretty 'Romance without Words' and the witty French influence comes out in a 'False Waltz' - there's another in the 1985 Violin Concerto, now recorded without Bernstein's growling noises (see above). 

Rorem says that his music is 'a diary no less compromising than my prose'. Could be – and the cover sports a sketch Jean Cocteau made of him at the piano. These are committed performances all round and first recordings of Pilgrims and the Flute Concerto. This is relaxed and indulgent music, even if these works are not the best from this now grand old man of American music.

Peter Dickinson 

Rorem Six Songs for High Voice. Ariel*. Ode. Last Poems of Wallace Stevens** Alleluia. Jack l'eventreur

Laura Aikin sop *Nicola Jürgensen cl **Gerhard Zank vc Donald Sulzen pf

Orfeo C620041A (66' • DDD) 

The renewal of interest in Ned Rorem's vocal music – more than 300 solo songs and numerous song-cycles – continues. There is very little duplication between Laura Aikin's recital and those of Susan Graham (see above) and Carole Farley (see above). All three include the early Alleluia from 1948, and Aikin and Graham sing the setting of Ronsard's Ode Je te salue heureuse Paix. Since Rorem often favours the mezzo voice, it is a surprise to find him in the high soprano stratosphere. 

Jack l'eventreur ('Jack the Ripper') has lots of odd imagery: the murderer is dressed in tweed, with a rose between his teeth. The accompaniment suggests a steady pace, but the vocal line ranges freely. The Six Songs for High Voice, scored originally for orchestra, is here arranged for piano; the poems are by Dryden and Browning, at first sight an odd pairing. Aikin relishes the coloratura flourishes, but like all high sopranos is not always able to get the words across, though Rorem gallantly comments 'The words float around up there like silver threads ... You can't possibly understand (them). but in this case I'm to blame, not the singer'. 

The Wallace Stevens settings, for voice, piano and cello, are linked by two instrumental solos, accentuating the sense of a journey through experience, a growth of feeling and understanding. There are images of nature, sleep, the river and, finally, 'A clear day and no memories'. In Ariel, on poems by Sylvia Plath, the clarinet takes over as a third voice. Four short poems, 'Words', 'Poppies in July', 'The Hanging Man', and 'Poppies in October', act as a sort of prelude to the long 'Lady Lazarus', with its horrific images and operatic ending ( 'Out of the ash I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air'). Nicola Jürgensen provides a spectacular clarinet obbligato to the slightly jazzy settings and here Aikin's words are splendidly clear. 

Donald Sulzen's accompaniments accentuate Rorem's sometimes severe, sometimes complex keyboard writing. Aikin, whose repertory runs from Queen of the Night to Lulu, is a singer to watch, and this is a major addition to the discography. Patrick O'Connor 

Rorem ‘On an Echoing Road’

Early in the morning. Are you the new person drawn toward me?. Rain in Spring. For Susan. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Jeanie with the light brown hair. To a Young Girl. Catullus: on the burial of his brother. Requiescat. I will always love you. That shadow, my likeness. On an echoing road. I strolled across an open field. Alleluia. Little Elegy. Sometimes with one I love. Hymn for Evening. Orchids. On a Singing Girl. Now sleeps the crimson petal. What if some little pain. Look down, fair moon. The Rainbow. Do I love you more than a day?. Their lonely betters. Do not love too long. Comment on War. The Serpent. Full of life now

The Prince Consort (Anna Leese sop Jennifer Johnston mez Tim Mead counterten Andrew Staples ten Jacques Imbrailo bar) / Alisdair Hogarth pf

Linn CKD342 (57’ • DDD)

A first thought here is that the poems would make an excellent anthology in themselves – and that is not to disparage the music. Armin Zanner’s introductory essay on the composer and his songs makes much of the echo motif (the phrase adopted for the subtitle is from a poem, well translated by Rorem, by Colette). Rorem is quoted as saying: 'I set words to music as I talk them'. He also says that the germ, 'the spark that’s lit in the night', usually goes into the accompaniment. Does that, I wonder, explain a second thought – that these songs are characteristically just a little too delicate, that this prized quality of colloquial ease is a reason why I also think that they will glide out of my mind as easily as they slid into it? 

Certainly – certainty at last – this is a most attractive disc. The Prince Consort comprises five singers still young, clear and intelligent in their way with words, and their pianist-director, Alisdair Hogarth. Unusually they have a countertenor in their midst, the excellent Tim Mead, who shares the title-song, a duet, with Anna Leese, and has two of the best solos. South African baritone Jacques Imbrailo is also noteworthy: the recording brings out the individual timbre of his voice, and to him goes what I still find best of the songs, 'Early in the morning'. John Steane