Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 - November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and a writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was considered the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Frequently described as a neoromantic composer, he showed limited interest in the emerging modernist aesthetic of his lifetime.
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1. Early in the Morning (0:00)
Poem by Robert Hillyer
Dedicated to Pierre Quèvel
2. Alleluia (2:02) 1946
Dedicated to Jeannie Tourel
3. I Will Always Love You (4:51)
Poem by Frank O'Hara
4. Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair (7:15)
Poem and music by Stephen Foster
5. Little Elegy (9:55) 1948
Poem by Elinor Wylie
6. Love (11:16)
Poem by Thomas Lodge
Dedication: Shirley Xenia Gabis Roads
7. O Do Not Love too Long (13:05) 1951
Poem by W.B. Yeats
8. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (14:31)
Poem by Robert Frost
Dedication: To My Father
9. To A Young Girl (16:25) 1951
Poem by W.B. Yeats
Dedication: Sylvia Goldstein
Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano & Malcolm Martineau, piano
Ned Rorem is best known for his art songs, of which he wrote more than 500. Many are coupled into some thirty or so song cycles, written from the early 1940s to 2000s. Rorem stressed the importance of a cycle's overall structure, paying close attention to the song order, progression of keys and transition between songs. He also emphasized theatricality, aiming to convey an overarching message via a unified emotional affect or mood. Like in other genres, the musicologist Philip Lieson Miller remarked that "Rorem's chosen field of song is not for the avant garde and he must be classified as [...] conservative", and that "he has never striven for novelty". Rorem's strict definitions of what constitutes a song has molded them to be typically be single-voice and piano settings of lyrical poems of moderate length. He named songs by Monteverdi, Schumann, Poulenc and the Beatles as particular favorites. To obtain certain effects, however, Rorem has occasionally experimented with more modernist sentiments, such as intense chromaticism, successive modulations and alternating time signatures.
Many of Rorem's songs are accompanied by piano, though some have mixed instrumental ensemble or orchestral accompaniment. A pianist himself, his accompaniment parts for the instrument are not completely secondary to the voice and more a "full complement to the melody". They include motives to emphasize textual elements-such as rain and clouds-and are wildly diverse in function, sometimes responding to the voice in counterpoint or simply doubling the vocal line. He sometimes uses the Renaissance-derived ground bass technique of a slow and repeated bassline in the left hand. Reflecting on his piano accompaniments, the writer Bret Johnson describes Rorem's musical hallmarks as "chiming piano, rushing triplets, sumptuous harmonies"