Ned Rorem

* Symphony No. 1 (1950)
* Symphony No. 2 (1956)
* Symphony No. 3 (1958)

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Jose Serebrier.
Naxos 8.559149  Total time: 69:22

Summary for the Busy Executive: What's not to like?

Rorem is a composer who's played with the odds against him.  Despite a
fairly dissolute life - with self-destructive alcoholism and promiscuous
sex prominent, at least for a number of years - he's made it to the age
of eighty.  I would also say, despite the lack of a distinctive style,
he has had a successful career as a composer - both professionally and
artistically.  He composed tonal, non-developmental music at a time when
both of these things among the tastemakers put his music down as
inconsequential.  Persistence, a genius for publicity, and a waspish,
witty pen that could return better than it got didn't hurt him, but most
important he wrote music that both sounded good and said something worth
saying.  Consequently, when critical trends turned, Rorem had a body of
solid work awaiting rediscovery, or even discovery.  For example, his
first two symphonies get their first commercial recordings, roughly fifty
years after he wrote them.

Rorem discounts his abilities as a symphonist, always warning the listener
not to expect, essentially, Brahms, but I think him over-scrupulous.
The first symphony shows someone who can, if he chooses, work in classical
forms.  The opening sounds of the piece call to mind the American
neo-classical symphonists of the Thirties and Forties, but very quickly
Rorem gives us something new with these materials -- what I'd call a
lyrical impulse, compelling and surprisingly moving.  We don't get a
knock-off Somebody Else, despite shared materials.  One senses a lack
of interest in Germanic argument but not slop.  One hones in on a
sensibility fastidious, elegant, slightly acidic, even occasionally
sensual, and above all on a compulsion to spin out the longest song one
can.  When I heard the divertissement second movement, I said to myself,
"Very French." The liner notes (by Serebrier) mention Faure, which is
as accurate a locus as any -- maybe Faure harmonically updated by Roussel,
Ravel, Poulenc, or Piston.

The meat of the piece comes with the slow third movement, as it would
in most Romantic symphonies.  The French sound, trim and spare, a bit
reticent and reminiscent of a Satie gymnopedie, nevertheless brings in
something new and personal to the composer -- that meditative, slightly
bluesy lyricism of some of his best songs, like "The Lordly Hudson." The
more-or-less rondo finale alternates between high wit and rapturous
singing.  The thing zips along with near-animal energy.  One outstanding,
delightful surprise occurs when Rorem gives the main rondo theme to the
tuneless percussion.  I also sense the "shadow symphonies" of Mozart's
Nos.  39 and 40 in the background.  Certain quick rhythms and the shape
of the first lyrical theme bring Mozart to mind.  I have no idea whether
Rorem did this consciously.  Overall, the symphony has no deadwood,
nothing of the routine in it.  I love this work.

Six years later, the second symphony goes its own way, with no referent
to classical forms at all.  Structurally, it's very odd indeed, with a
first movement way more than twice as long as the remaining movements
together.  Serebrier gives a very good, brief account of the first
movement's progress, and I won't repeat it here.  However, Serebrier
does convey the impression that Rorem merely puts one note after the
other.  Actually, it's very tightly written, with essentially two themes
(or, more accurately, thematic shapes) varied and even combined for more
than fifteen minutes.  Rhetorically, it is one long blossoming and covers
a wide expressive range, from contemplative singing to lively dance to
grand (but not grandiose) declamation.  The second movement shows some
affinities to Coplandian pastoralism (with a prominent phrase rather
close to one in the Lincoln Portrait).  Though short, it's gorgeous and,
strangely enough, very satisfying as a slow movement.  So a slow movement
doesn't have to be long to be good.  The jumping finale is "big-shoulder"
music, with piano standing out in the overall orchestral fabric.  Despite
some wonderful ideas, including a jazzy section, this movement does seem
short-winded.  Nevertheless, the work as a whole commands both love and
respect.  I hate the fact that I couldn't hear this work for over forty
years.  Indeed, both works have revised my estimate of Rorem's work way
upwards.

Premiered by Bernstein and New York, the third symphony was subsequently
recorded by Abravanel and the Utah Symphony, an LP I've had for a long
time.  The first two movements of the work strike me as expert, rather
than inspired.  The first movement is based entirely on a motive of
falling thirds.  Serebrier's liner notes claim it's also a passacaglia,
but I don't hear it myself.  The second movement is a quick and jazzy
piece of Bernsteiniana, perhaps a tip of the hat to the commissioner.
The symphony really picks up, however, at the third movement, a quirky
bit of slightly acidic lyricism that seems a Rorem fingerprint.  Rorem
calls it a "short passionate page about somnambulism." There is indeed
a somewhat eerie quality to it, even emphasized in its placement in the
work, before another, more substantial slow movement.  The andante sings
beautifully, but compared to its predecessor, a little conventionally.
The finale displays a grown-up wit -- a kind of sonata-rondo, where two
subjects (one bubbly, the other singing) alternate.  It turns out very
quickly that the "two" subjects are really one, simply varied in character
and tempo.

Serebrier champions these works as well as anybody, including the composer,
can expect.  They force the listener to re-examine the received portrait
of Rorem as primarily a song and choral composer.  Despite the composer's
protests, he is a tremendous symphonic talent.  Serebrier and the
Bournemouth players are especially good at generating exciting rhythm
and achieving clear texture (the two often go hand in hand).  This is
one of Naxos's best, both for repertoire and for performance.

Steve Schwartz