A Ned Rorem Reader

Editions

Review

There have been composers - Berlioz and Stravinsky, for example - who have written sensitively about music, and others who have left brilliant letters which illuminate their craft, such as Mozart and Strauss, but none has written about matters non-musical quite as well as Ned Rorem, and to this collection of shorter pieces he brings the eye for detail and the wicked sense of humour which have made him one of the truly great diarists of the 20th Century.

The book is divided into three parts, roughly dealing with matters personal, musical and public, but anyone familiar with his other writings will be aware of how boundaries vanish in his refreshing and sometimes acerbic prose.  He is as punctilious in this miscellany as he is in the setting of one of his beautifully worked songs.  It’s good to know that due to his collaboration with such starry singers as Susan Graham and Carole Farley, his music is at last reaching a wider audience.

In his miniature portraits he can capture the essence of his subject in a few lines and instantly inform us why he liked Aaron Copland and admired his work, but didn’t take to Samuel Barber as a person.  In the international homosexual world, his native habitat, he can be particularly funny and he adds significantly to the pool of gossip about Capote, Tennessee Williams, Bernstein and Zeffirelli.

Perhaps however, the most masterly essay is about Poulenc where he paints us a wonderful picture not only of a friend, but of a great artist, full of revealing contradictions.  Writer and subject come together, both embracing high–minded values, but with a taste for the demi-monde. - review by Stewart Grimshaw