Composer Ned Rorem has a famous bit, wherein he sorts everything in the world into two categories, French and German. He’s repeated it, with variations, many times over the years, perhaps most definitively in his autobiography, “Knowing When to Stop,” published in 1996:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that the entire solar system is torn between two aesthetics: French and German. Virtually everything is one or the other. Blue is French, red is German. ‘No’ is French, ‘yes’ is German. Formal gardens are French, oceans are German. The moon is French, the sun German. Gay men are French, lesbians are German. Crows’ feet are French, pigs’ knuckles are German. Schubert on his good days is French, Berlioz is forever German. Jokes are French, the explanation of jokes is German. If ‘French’ is to be profoundly superficial, like Impressionism, which depicts a fleeting vision of eternity, then ‘German’ is to be superficially profound, as when Bruckner’s music digs ever deeper into one narrow hole. If you agree with all this, you’re French. If you disagree, you’re German.”
Rorem signed my copy after a reading at Borders in Philadelphia. I must have caught him in a good mood. He was very pleasant and conversational, even after I told him I was German.
Rorem is notorious for his candid (some would say bitchy) diaries and musical assessments. He had a lively intelligence and a razor wit. Also, he must have had an aging portrait in an attic somewhere, transfigured by his abundant sins. At the time of the signing, he was in his 70s, but he could have easily been mistaken for someone twenty years younger.
He was still teaching composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in those days. Philadelphia has always been a small town masquerading as a big city, and wouldn’t you know it, Rorem was also the uncle of the (equally-ageless) woman who managed an architecture and design bookstore at which I worked in my early 20s. Rorem would come in to the shop occasionally to have some things framed. I also saw him at student concerts at Curtis and attended the world premiere of his Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Orchestra, written for Curtis’ then-director, Gary Graffman.
Rorem has composed in all forms – symphonies, concertos, chamber music, opera – but he has always been most highly regarded for his art songs. Here’s a lovely piece of nostalgia, called “Early in the Morning.” It’s easy to see how Rorem, who spent his formative years in Paris, would connect to the text, by Robert Hillyer.
Early in the morning
Of a lovely summer day,
As they lowered the bright awning
At the outdoor café,
I was breakfasting on croissants
And café au lait
Under greenery like scenery,
Rue François Premier.
They were hosing the hot pavement
With a dash of flashing spray
And a smell of summer showers
When the dust is drenched away,
Under greenery like scenery,
Rue François Premier.
I was twenty and a lover
And in Paradise to stay,
Very early in the morning
Of a lovely summer day.
Although Rorem also worked in larger forms, his true genius was for the miniature. Even when he tackled longer works, it was not unusual for them to be built out of smaller individual units. In the case of his Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Orchestra, there are eight short movements – as opposed to three epic statements in the grand German tradition. Very French, you might say.
At his most lyrical, I always thought Rorem shared an affinity with Francis Poulenc. But you need to get to the middle movements to appreciate that. Especially the one that starts about 22 minutes in. I always thought the approach to the theme that opens the work – and returns in the last movement – as kind of like scat-singing. I was present in the hall for this recording, made at the work’s world premiere at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music in 1993.
Happy birthday, Ned Rorem, 99 years-old today!
PHOTO: (counterclockwise from top) Rorem, André Previn, and Gary Graffman rehearse the Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Orchestra. In support of my “aging portrait” theory, Rorem is five years older than Graffman, and 5 1/2 years older than Previn!
