Still Sings the Voice: A Portrait of Ned Rorem

Extract

I Well Remember hearing my first Rorem work—his Symphony No. 3 of 1959, with its wealth of melody and uninhibited joie de vivre. I determined to hear more and soon realized that there has been too little comment on him (not to mention performances!) on this side of the Atlantic. His reputation, earned in the 1950's and 1960's, as ‘America's foremost composer of art songs’ has been consolidated whilst he has been venturing into many other areas of musical terrain. Indeed, he has been a busy man—with more than 30 major works to his credit since 1970: and since his reputation as a composer of large-scale orchestral and choral works is less clearly perceived in this country, I propose to concentrate on this aspect in a brief survey of how his art has developed in recent years.