Rorem, Ned 1980
I was a musician who happened to write, not an author who happened to compose. Thus the diary, being random and bloody and self-indulgent, answered to different needs than the music, which was planned, pristine, objective.
– Ned Rorem, “Setting The Tone, Essays and a Diary”
Continue reading the prologue of this book⇒
Listen to the New York Philharmonic perform Ned Rorem’s “Symphony No. 3:”
Ned Rorem / Symphony No. 3 (Bernstein)
Ned Rorem (b. 1923) Symphony No. 3 (1958) 00:00 – Lento appassionato 06:49 – Allegro molto vivace 09:10 – Largo 12:00 – Andante 16:38 – Allegro molto New York Philharmonic, dir. Leonard Bernstein (world premiere broadcast performance of 18 April 1959) “Rorem’s Third Symphony is much related to the last phase of his residence in France in 1957.
Read an interview with Ned Rorem from the Paris Review:
The Paris Review
“I am a composer,” Ned Rorem once said, “who also writes, not a writer who also composes.” His music-hundreds of ravishing art songs and instrumental scores, one of which won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize-has brought him fame. But it is his diaries that have brought him celebrity.
