Settling the Score: Essays on Music

by Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem explores the state of contemporary classical music in a magnificent collection of personally selected essays and critiques of masterworks, lesser works, and their legendary creators. 

Pulitzer Prize–winner Ned Rorem’s musical compositions are considered some of the finest produced in the past century. His literary works have been hailed as “scintillating” (Time magazine) and “extraordinary” (The Washington Post). Rorem’s remarkable twin talents are brilliantly intertwined in Settling the Score, a masterful collection of essays on music, composers, and the state of the art. Selected by Rorem himself, these enthralling and provocative pieces examine the works of the great and (in the author’s lively, unabashed opinion) the not-so-great masters of twentieth-century classical music—Debussy, Ravel, Copland, Gershwin, Barber, Cage, Bernstein, Britten, Stravinsky, and others. With keen precision, he dissects the so-called serious music of our time while predicting where the form is bound in the future.

Never lacking in intelligence or wit, each essay in Settling the Score sings in a voice that is clear and true.

American composers : tributes and reviews.
Living with Gershwin --
Copland's birthday (at seventy) --
Copland at eighty-five --
A medal for Lenny --
William Flanagan : in memoriam --
Flanagan's music --
Looking for Sam --
A note on Barber's Antony and Cleopatra --
Lord Byron in Kansas City --
Smoke without fire --
Foss improvises --
Cage's HPSCHD --
A paragraph on Crumb --
Elliott Carter : a book review --
Richard Cumming's songs --
Ezra Pound as musician --
The American composer speaks.
Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc. Notes on Debussy --
Pelléas and Pierre --
Notes for Debussy's En blanc et noir --
Ravel --
Ravel and song --
Dancing to Ravel --
Ravel's house --
Francis Poulenc : a souvenir --
Afterthoughts on Francis --
Poulenc's Dialogues --
Poulenc's chamber music for winds --
Bernac and Poulenc. Germans, Russians, and other Europeans. The Rosenkavalier diary --
A Strauss biography --
Notes on Weill --
Nabokov's Bagázh --
Stravinsky via Craft --
Variations on Mussorgsky --
Rubinstein at the movies --
About Toscanini --
Britten's Death in Venice. Popular music. Anita Ellis and Barbra Streisand --
Afterthoughts on the Beatles --
Against rock --
Great songs of the sixties : a book review --
Jesus Christ superstar --
Last thoughts on the Beatles --
The more things change : notes on French popular song. Three landscapes with figures. Where is our music going? --
Our music now (1974) --
Our music now (1984). Of songs and words. Poetry of music --
Song singing in America --
Anatomy of two songs --
Last poems of Wallace Stevens : an album note --
A postscript on Whitman. Odds and endings. Why I write as I do --
Notes on sacred music --
The well-dressed composer --
Ladies' music --
Charles Rosen's The Classical style --
Homage to Julius Katchen (1926-1969) --
Robert Jacobson gone --
Peter Yates on twentieth-century music --
On nearing sixty --
Marginalia

Genres: Music

366 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923) is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.

Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana and received his early education in Chicago at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, the American Conservatory of Music and then Northwestern University. Later, Rorem moved on to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and finally the Juilliard School in New York City.

In 1966 he published The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem, which, with his later diaries, has brought him some notoriety, as he is honest about his and others' sexuality, describing his relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noël Coward, Samuel Barber, and Virgil Thomson, and outing several others[vague] (Aldrich and Wotherspoon, eds., 2001). Rorem has written extensively about music as well. These essays are collected in anthologies such as Setting the Tone, Music From the Inside Out, and Music and People. His prose is much admired, not least for its barbed observations about such prominent musicians as Pierre Boulez. Rorem has composed in a chromatic tonal idiom throughout his career, and he is not hesitant to attack the orthodoxies of the avant-garde.

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, high brow essays. Even the essays that I had no interest in seemed to have big nuggets of wisdom from one of America's oldest living composers. The collection was published in the late 1980s, but I found it surprising how well much of the content had aged. It was extremely interesting to read about Rorem's take on "Our Music Today" in essays from both the 1970s and 1980s. Only a handful of essays fell short––(naturally) usually the most esoteric ones, such as his analysis of French popular song and comparisons with his own song cycles. Other essays I thought I would enjoy (such as the ones about The Beatles), but those fell short likely because of their date of publication (pre-White Album). Still, I felt enriched while reading and wanted to get to listening to some of the repertoire he discusses.

[Michael Cervantes · Rating 2 out of 5]

He should stick to composing