Ned Rorem

As a child I murmured the word “magnolia” before going to sleep, and on awakening “gardenia.” The idea was to start and end the day well, no matter what came between.
-Ned Rorem

The first time I met Ned was at Susan Graham’s Carnegie Hall performance with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She sang the world premiere of Ned’s 11 Songs for Susan, which he wrote for her. I was able to get backstage and meet them both, a momentous evening for me! Over the years I would visit him in his apartment and had the wonderful privilege of performing his music for him on his piano. Ned’s loving niece Mary Marshall graciously showed me the original manuscripts from Piano Album l. They were hand decorated with garlands of flowers surrounding the edges, encircling his beautiful music. The hand crafted texture of these sweet gifts to his dear Jim was palpable, like hand made Valentine’s Day cards. I was proud to have the privilege of having the premiere recordings of his complete Piano Album l and Six Friends, which was chosen by the NY Times in 2013 as one of the Best in Classical Recordings of the Year.

Ned thanked me for the “wonderful performance of his music.” On my regular visits with him, he said that “he had forgotten these pieces, that they are all very simple, like Bach Inventions. He also generously said that he was “very pleased with the recording, that the pieces are now immortalized.” They date from 1978-2001. I wish to dedicate a space to my dear Ned with some of my favorite quotes and features of the wonderful composer that he was. I miss him very much.

My Favorite Quotes

Quotes upon hearing my recording Piano Album l and Six Friends:

““I’ve never heard these before.”

“Good performance all the way through.”

“I had forgotten these pieces.”

“You do them well.”

“All very simple, like Bach Inventions.”

“I’m very pleased with all this, immortalized…. And with your playing.”

From Ned’s Memoir Knowing When to Stop“

“Music’s power lies in the absence of human significance and this power dominates all mediums it contacts.”

“Wasn’t the “artist,” in fact, the most sane of citizens, saner than generals of moneymakers, since he and he alone knows what he wants to do and how to do it? (Money and war merely bide the time.)”

“There is no one right way to play a piece; there are as many right ways as there are true performers. There is no progress (or if there is, progress cannot be always equated with the Good), there is only the Eternal Return.”

“All who produce are alike. If loneliness is a prerequisite, it will present itself despite our looking for it.”

“Challenge: to be more concerned about what I think of others than about what others think of me.”

“In music the present is extended.”

“Love is impossible. If it were possible it wouldn’t be love.”

Quotes from Wings of Friendship – Selected Letters, 1944-2003 by Ned Rorem

“To Judy Collins – The piece called “Sixty Notes for Judy” is very soft (it would have been lost in performance perhaps.) Each note lasts a second, so your whole life is encapsulated in a single minute. While playing it for myself yesterday the music seemed suddenly sad: with each second, a year vanishes forever, and then the whole piece fades away after the final notes.
Well, anyway, let’s hope you have at least sixty more notes in you…
Love now and forever –
Ned”

“To Judy Collins – Forgot to say that the little piece I wrote for your birthday, 2 years ago, “Sixty Notes for Judy,” I’ve arranged for Oboe and Piano. As such it’s included in a new suite of Nine Pieces (for Oboe and Piano) and has already been played several times… So you’re again immortalized, this time through the nasal whine of a woodwind.
Complete love to Louis
Ned”

“To James Hamilton-Paterson – I’ve just elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters!! When Louis Auchincloss asked if I’d accept the nomination I thought he was kidding. It’s the job for a responsible adult, while I’m still a child.
But then, every artist is half-child, half-grown-up, and when the grown-up takes over he stops being an artist. So maybe I’m as qualified as any of the other 250 child-members…
Work well on the new novel. That’s all there is.
Ned