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A Ned Rorem Reader
by
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem, composer and writer, is both a gifted memoirist and one of our most acerbic cultural commentators. This anthology of his musings on music, people, and life surveys the full range of his literary achievement and reflects the evolution of his sensibilities.
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
October 11th 2001
by Yale University Press
(first published 2001)
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Ned Rorem is (was?) a twentieth century raconteur and music composer, a guy who rubbed elbows (and apparently a bit more than that) with many famous and near-famous cultural figures. His memoir is a feast, something you read while curled up in a chair with a cup of filthy jasmine tea.
In the hands of a lesser writer, this kind of thing would amount to little more than narcissistic grandstanding. But Rorem's insights are keen and his prose is somehow lyrical and muscular at the same t...more
In the hands of a lesser writer, this kind of thing would amount to little more than narcissistic grandstanding. But Rorem's insights are keen and his prose is somehow lyrical and muscular at the same t...more
I guess I'm done with this. I bought it in December and have been nibbling on it ever since. I opened it recently and realized there's nothing in it I haven't read. Rorem is a first-rate composer, but much of his renown rests on his exhibitionistic diaries and bitchy music reviews. Some of his stuff can be thin, a little jejune, a little slack, but his musical writings are brilliant. He explains that Virgil Thomson, who set the tone for many other 20th American composers, filtered homespun melod...more
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why does self-doubt comfort me?
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