Ned Rorem, great American composer and diarist, has died at the age of 99 : Deceptive Cadence : NPR

Composer Ned Rorem in 1953 in Paris, where he lived for nearly a decade and wrote his notorious works. paris diaries.

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Composer Ned Rorem in 1953 in Paris, where he lived for nearly a decade and wrote his notorious works. paris diaries.

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American composer Ned Romem passed away at the age of 99. The Pulitzer Prize winner is best known for his artistic songs — and his controversial diaries. Rorem died Friday morning at his home in Manhattan. His publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, confirmed his death of natural causes with NPR.

Ned Rorem was quietly defiant, in many ways. The first is through the music he chose to write. While he has composed symphonies, concertos and operas – the kinds of works that will win you a Pulitzer – his reputation rests on his massive volume of more than 500 artistic songs.

The song “The Lordly Hudson” brought Ned Rorem his first award. The composer started his career early with a scholarship to attend Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Academy of Music at the age of 19. Then Fulbright, then Guggenheim, and in 1976, Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral work Air Music: Ten Etudes for Orchestra.

Air music is an exception when it comes to the composer’s musical language – which marks another bit of a challenge on the part of Rorem. In general, he has kept a conservative approach at a time when the prevailing style was academic and extraordinary. “serial music” in which practitioners abandoned traditional tones and prioritized a series of seemingly alien notes.

And as Rorem told NPR in 2003 with his typical wit, his defiance meant that no one noticed him.

“When the serial killers showed up, a lot of very vocal composers fled to another camp, and they wrote what was written in those days,” he said. “Some still do. But some have defected and come back. I feel like the brother of the prodigal son – I’ve always been a good boy.”

A lot of people have looked at things completely differently when it comes to things that have nothing to do with music. In fact, Rorem is a “romantic” and “very undisciplined”, in words of the New Yorkers writer Janet Flanner. She’s talking about his prose, and she wants to say it as a compliment. Over the years, Rorem has been known for his diaries – perhaps even more so than his music. It started in 1966 with paris diariesincludes an unambiguous chronicle of gay life long before it became customary.

Tim Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic, is a fan of Rorem’s prose. “Although I admire his work,” Page said, “I can say that in a way, the diary and the critiques are the things that mean the most to me. It’s worth it. What’s encouraging about Ned is that even if you don’t agree with him, he makes you think — and I think that’s a sign of a true master critic.”

Rorem, born October 23, 1923 in Richmond, Ind., shared different parts of himself depending on the medium he was working in. The written word is where he shares details about his personal life. In his music, not so much.

“Ned is almost proud of a certain emotional separation, of a certain kind of craft. His diary is where he keeps his diary – his music is something else. ,” said Page.

This is how Rorem himself put it in one of his books, called Lie:

“I don’t believe that composers record their moods, they don’t tell the music where to go. It guides them… Why do I write music? Because I want to hear it. It’s that simple. That’s okay. Others may have more talent, a greater sense of responsibility. But I only compose when necessary, and no one else makes what I need.”