Rorem's "Evidence"

Synopsis

In 1998, the year he turned 75, Ned Rorem completed a major 90-minute song cycle comprising 36 settings that he entitled "Evidence of Things Not Seen."

The texts he chose to set to music included selections from the British poets Wordsworth, Kipling and W.H. Auden, as well as Americans such as Whitman, Dickinson, and Paul Goodman. A joint commission from the New York Festival of Song and the Library of Congress, the new piece received its premiere performance on today's date in 1998 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Rorem said his aim was to sum up what he knew about the song genre and what he has learned from a life "gotten through by writing music." The texts he chose all deal with living and dying.

One of them, a poignant meditation entitled "The Sick Wife" by the poet Jane Kenyon, is about a dying woman who sits in a parked car as her husband shops for groceries. The cycle takes its title from a work by the early American Quaker poet William Penn, which includes these lines: "Look not to things that are seen, but to that which is unseen; for things that are seen pass away, but that which is unseen is forever."

"I don't believe in God, and I know there is no afterlife," commented Rorem, "Yet I do believe in belief. I'm not moved by the belief of the Moonies, but I am by the belief of Michelangelo, King David, and Paul Goodman."

Music Played in Today's Program

Ned Rorem (b. 1923): Evidence of Things Not Seen Vocal soloists; Michael Barrett and Steven Blier, pianists New World 575

On This Day

Births

• 1727 - French composer Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, in Dijon;

• 1870 - French composer and organist Charles Tournemire, in Bordeaux;

• 1901 - Austrian composer Hans Erich Apostel, in Karlsruhe, Germany;

• 1903 - English composer Robin Milford, in Oxford;

• 1916 - French composer Henri Dutilleux, in Angers;

• 1923 - American composer Leslie Bassett, in Hanford, Calif.;

• 1924 - American jazz composer and trombonist James Louis ("J.J.") Johnson, in Indianapolis;

Deaths

• 1964 - American composer Marc Blitzstein, age 58, from injuries suffered in a barroom fight, in Fort-de-France, Martinique;

Premieres

• 1723 - Handel: opera "Ottone, re di Germania" (Julian date: Jan. 12);

• 1859 - Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in d, Op. 15, with the Hanover Court Orchestra conducted by Joseph Joachim and the composer as the soloist;

• 1887 - Gilbert & Sullivan: operetta "Ruddigore" at the Svoy Theatre in London;

• 1894 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 4, in St.Petersburg (Gregorian date: Feb. 3);

• 1908 - Stravinsky: Symphony in Eb, Op. 1, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Feb. 4):

• 1934 - Shostakovich: opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (1st version), in Leningrad at the Maliiy Opera Theater;

• 1936 - Hindemith: "Trauermusik (Music of Mourning)" for Viola and String Orchestra,on a BBC memorial concert for King George V of England (who had died on January 20, 1935), with Sir Adrian Boult conducting and the composer as soloist;

• 1970 - Carlisle Floyd: opera "Of Mice and Men," in Seattle; According to Opera America, this is one of the most frequently-produced American operas during the past decade;

• 1980 - John Williams: "Cowboys Overture," by the Boston Pops, conducted by the composer;

• 1998 - Ned Rorem: song-cycle “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City, by the New York Festival of Song;

• 1998 - Bright Sheng: "Postcards," in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota, by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Hugh Wolff conducting;

Others

• 1575 - The Protestant Queen of England, Elizabeth I, grants a license to Thomas Tallis and William Byrd (both Catholics), to print music for 22 years;

• 1889 - Columbia Phonograph Company founded in Washington, D.C.;

• 1907 - The Metropolitan Opera production of R. Strauss' opera "Salome," with soprano Olive Fremstad in the title role, creates a scandal; The opera is dropped after a single performance, and not staged at the Met again until the 1930s.