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I've always been a big fan of Ned Rorem. He's a bit like the Kevin Bacon of 20th-century art—just a few degrees of separation link him to nearly any major artist of his time. Thanks to his long life and meticulous journals, we know much about the personal lives of many composers who have long since passed. His music was daring and fresh, yet perfectly attuned to the style and sensibilities of his time. The musical world truly lost a giant with his passing in 2022.
In 1961, at the age of 37, Ned Rorem returned to New York City after a teaching stint in Buffalo, battling an extended period of writer’s block. He hadn’t "put down a note of music in six months—the longest ever." Rorem appeared to be in a slump, grappling with depression, drinking heavily, and engaging in indiscriminate encounters with strangers. In the midst of the New York blizzards that January, he wrote to his friend Virgil Thompson in Paris, asking, "Have you seen my lost youth around?" Thompson replied with characteristic wit: "There's plenty of lost youth around, but I don't know if any of it’s yours."
These were familiar and recurring themes for Ned Rorem and From an Unknown Past, a set of seven a cappella choral pieces with text from various sources from around the 16th century with mostly unknown or unclear authorship. The work as a whole was dedicated to several of Rorem's friends who had recently died.
He starts with "The Lover in the Winter Plaineth for the Spring," in which the iciness of the New York winter sets in. The steadily moving melismas create a soundscape that conveys his state of mind and, paired with the text, expresses his loneliness as he searches the New York streets for a distraction, with a little bit of characteristic self-awareness and humor for the initiated. It is dedicated to the memory of artist Géorg Redlich, a friend of his who died in a horrific car accident.
The second section, "Hey Nonny No!", was dedicated to a good friend of Ned's, artist Marie Laure, whose home Rorem stayed at while writing From an Unknown Past. Rorem found inspiration while staying with her and became pleased with his writing, saying "never have I been so pleased with my own music: I have a recognizable style."
Much can be said about Ned Rorem and his associations: the third section is dedicated to writer Julien Green; the brief and witty fourth section is dedicated to famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger (whom he regarded as the most remarkable pedagogue of the century); and the fifth is dedicated to artist couple Nora and Georges Auric. The sixth and possibly most melancholy section, titled "Tears," is dedicated to the memory of Don Dalton, a friend of Rorem's who died at the age of 24, decapitated by walking into a propeller. It is in this movement we hear the depth of Rorem's emotional writing with an extremely slow pace and homophonic music, making the words clear and central to the music.
The final movement, "Crabbed Age and Youth" (poem by William Shakespeare?", takes a jaunty turn, with virtuosic and jovial lines. There's humor and buoyancy in the lines in a strong contrast to the previous section, signaling that the lesson to be learned from the sadness Ned Rorem was experiencing at the time can be countered with seizing the day and enjoying the simple pleasures in life. The section is dedicated to his friend Guy Ferrand, about whom, along with Marie Laure, Rorem recounted countless stories of frivolity, joy, pleasure, and pain in his journals. Both became his closest acquaintances.
While it can be easy to disregard the music of composers who set text from anonymous, ancient sources, these seven pieces prove deeply personal to Ned Rorem. He later created a version for vocal solo with piano accompaniment that is often programmed for recitals. When Ned Rorem died, it felt important to us at Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir to record one of his lesser-known pieces as soon as possible to honor this musical legend.
Sources:
Rorem, Ned (1966). The Paris Diary. New York: George Braziller.
Rorem, Ned (1967). The New York Diary. New York: George Braziller.
Ross, Alex (2007). The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Image
By Anonymous - James Camner (ed.): Great Composers in Historic Photographs, p. 92. (New York 1981.), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126270215
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