Well Composed

The birthday songs: Ned Rorem's alma mater, Curtis Institute, honors him with a two-week celebration, including the Philadelphia premiere of his opera, Miss Julie.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Composer, critic, diarist and teacher Ned Rorem marks his 80th in style.

by David Shengold

Unarguably an essential American composer and author, Ned Rorem adores birthday cakes. Aptly, Curtis Institute celebrates its longtime associate’s 80th with both literal and figurative goodies, the latter being five events presenting a wide range of his compositions (the rare mounting Nov. 7 of his revision of 1965’s Miss Julie marks the first staged opera at the Kimmel’s Perelman Theatre). A Midwesterner, Rorem came to Philly to attend Curtis in 1942. Losing "every kind of virginity," he made personal and professional alliances that would last for years (sadly, one lifelong Curtis friend, pianist Eugene Istomin, just died). Rorem left for the "irresistible opportunity" of being copyist to, and, eventually, sole pupil of, nonpareil composer/critic Virgil Thomson in New York. Since 1980 he’s taught young Curtis composers in New York and Philadelphia; family ties often bring him here as well. And in 1993 Curtis premiered his Piano Concerto for Left Hand, written for Institute Director Gary Graffman (which Rorem calls "a perfect performance").

No composer save Berlioz (whom he doesn’t "get") has ever achieved comparable stature as a writer. Rorem’s dozen-plus books form an invaluable testament to late 20th-century artistic life in America (and France, his home from 1949 to 1957). With Gore Vidal and James Baldwin, Rorem spearheaded a forthrightness about homosexuality that startled a complacent, conformist America. Though many looked first in the published diaries for 1) their own names, 2) sexy escapades, and 3) fetching "NR" photos, Rorem addresses pithily a wide range of topics, decries fakery in American life (Helen Hayes, Ronald Reagan, Isaac Stern) and engagingly lays bare his own devices: "It takes a heap of revision to seem impulsive."

Rorem has always hewed to his own aesthetic preference for a textural transparency more associated with French music than with the Teutonic tradition that long dominated American musical pedagogy. Debussy and Satie are signal favorites; never mind Beethoven, let alone Schoenberg. Long before any talk of a "return to tonality" Rorem denounced the "Serial Killers" embodied by Pierre Boulez and — a particular bête noire — Elliott Carter. He has occasionally praised one of their compositions; Rorem the critic (of music, books and films) remains open to re-evaluations (in both directions) of art and artists.

Rorem has also been a poignant chronicler of loss: Well before middle age he was a relentless scanner of obituary pages, all too soon called upon to be an eloquent eulogist. The 1999 death of organist James Holmes, his partner of 32 years, is traced heartbreakingly in his 2000 book Lies: A Diary, 1986-1999. Yet Rorem endures and remains a vital composer and teacher, even if pessimistic in regard to "high" culture’s place in the world: "I am five things: pacifist, atheist, homosexual, recovering alcoholic and composer. ’Composer’ is the safest: No one can despise you if they don’t know you exist."

Critically hailed composer Daron Hagen studied with Rorem at Curtis (1981-83) and remains a close associate: "Ned was at his best when most brutal; the better my music, the more merciless his critique. (Ned: ’Instruction is not offered, it is seized.’) He never pretended to be an academic; he was a mid-career professional. Consequently, his reactions were like dispatches from the creative and intellectual frontlines, uninflected and deadly serious."

Rorem has long urged American singers to master and champion their own language. He’s penned more than 500 songs to texts by more than 200 writers, always honoring the words, with no repetitions — at least in poetic texts — not specified by the author. He saw the "art song recital," in which his works for decades figured prominently, drop to near-extinction in the ’80s. Skeptical of its touted resurgence (in a few cities and university settings) and of some lauded practitioners ("Dawn Upshaw tries to ’cross over,’ but she’s just too classy; art needs some vulgarity"), he praises Susan Graham, whose song CD provides a fine introduction to his oeuvre. Donald Gramm and Istomin recorded five Whitman settings (1954) with the Vietnam-inspired but all-too-timely War Scenes (1969), also to Whitman texts. Rorem himself accompanies a Naxos’ Carole Farley song program and his symphonic, chamber and organ music can at least be sampled on disc.

Rorem speaks of Mikael Eliasen’s vocal studies department at Curtis as being one of few places properly training singers to interpret "art song." Eliasen, entrusted with the local premiere of the strikingly affecting cycle Evidence of Things Not Seen in 1997, has prepared another performance for Ned Rorem’s Big Day, Oct. 23. The cake arrives later.

Roremania, Evidence of Things Not Seen, Thu., Oct. 23, 8 p.m., free (first come, first served), Curtis Institute , 1726 Locust St.; organ and sacred choral music, Sun., Oct. 26, 4 p.m., free, St. Mark’s Church, 16th and Locust sts.; chamber works, Sun., Nov. 2, 3 p.m., free, Curtis Institute; song retrospective, Sun., Nov. 2, 8 p.m., free, Curtis Institute; Miss Julie, Fri., Nov. 7, 2 and 8 p.m., $38-$46, The Kimmel Center, 260 S. Broad St.; Ned Rorem speaks about Miss Julie, Fri., Nov. 7, 6:30 p.m., free, Rendell Room, The Kimmel Center; 215-893-5252, www.curtis.edu.

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