For Ned Rorem

The gentleman composer died yesterday at the age of ninety-nine. What I wrote about him in 2003: "To read Rorem’s writing is to feel the agony and the bravery of composing in America. Anyone who writes music for a living is a hero, and Rorem is more heroic than most, because he has compromised so little of what he holds dear. His prose will outlast the sneering of his critics, and his music is too mysteriously sweet to die away. To him should go the final word: 'The frustration of being nonexistent keeps us awake.'"