Orchestral Rorem

Synopsis

On this date in 1978, a symphonic suite titled "Sunday Morning" was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home in Saratoga, New York. The music was by the American composer Ned Rorem, famous for his hundreds of fine song settings of British and American poets, and his wicked series of "tell-all" diaries, which chronicle in graphic detail Rorem's musical and personal affairs.

Rorem's "Sunday Morning" was inspired by a poem by Wallace Stevens, but rather than set the text to music, Rorem decided to create an orchestral suite, a work he called "a non-literal, dreamlike recollection of Stevens' long poem... not expressed through a human voice but through the colors of instruments, alone and together."

Rorem's fame as a songwriter somewhat overshadows his accomplishments as a composer of symphonic works. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for a work titled "Air Music," a Bicentennial Commission from the Cincinnati Symphony, and Leonard Bernstein included the premiere performance of Rorem's Third Symphony as part of his first season as music director of the New York Philharmonic.

"It was a big affair for big orchestra," Rorem recalled, "Bernstein liked it immediately. 'It's exactly what I'm looking for... on condition that you re-orchestrate the whole slow movement for strings only!'" Rorem says he thought about it and said, 'Okay,' but then ignored Bernstein's request. Luckily, Bernstein forgot he had asked, and conducted the work — as written — to great acclaim.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ned Rorem (b. 1923) Sunday Morning Atlanta Symphony; Louis Lane, cond. New World 353

Ned Rorem (b. 1923) Symphony No. 3 Utah Symphony; Maurice Abravanel, cond. Vox Box 5092

On This Day

Births

• 1880 - Austrian operetta composer Robert Stoltz, in Graz;

• 1902 - German-born American composer Stefan Wolpe, in Berlin;

• 1918 - American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, in Lawrence, Mass.;

Deaths

• 1742 - Portuguese composer José Antonio Carlos de Seixas, age 38, in Lisbon;

• 1774 - Italian opera composer Niccolò Jommelli, age 59, in Naples;

Premieres

• 1830 - Auber: opera, "La muette de Portici" (aka "Masaniello"), in Brussels, igniting political riots leading to expulsion of Dutch and the Belgian Revolution of 1830;

• 1948 - Henze: Symphony No. 1 at Bad Pyrmont;

• 1978 - Rorem: "Sunday Morning" at Saratoga Springs, New York, by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy;

Others

• 1830 - Auber: opera, “La muette de Portici” (aka “Masaniello”), in Brussels, igniting political riots leading to expulsion of Dutch and the Belgian Revolution of 1830;

• 1870 - Richard Wagner marries Cosima Liszt von Bulow;

• 1959 - On his 41st birthday, Leonard Bernstein conducts a tour performance by the New York Philharmonic in Moscow; The program includes Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" and Ives' "The Unanswered Question."