Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 The Genesis of Evidence of Things Not Seen Tyler Scott Nelson Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC THE GENESIS OF EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN By TYLER SCOTT NELSON A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2009 The members of the committee approve the treatise of Tyler S. Nelson defended on October 22, 2009. __________________________________________ Matthew Lata Professor Directing Treatise __________________________________________ André J. Thomas University Representative __________________________________________ Stanford Olsen Committee Member __________________________________________ Marcía Porter Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Ned Rorem for his graciousness in allowing me to speak with him at length about his life and his work. I would also like to thank his niece, Mary Marshall, for her kindness in facilitating our meeting and for going above and beyond the call of duty to make me feel welcome and assist me in this endeavor. I would also like to thank Matthew Lata, André J. Thomas, Stanford Olsen, and Marcía Porter, for the many hours they have spent and the patience shown as they have guided me through this process. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract vi 1. NED ROREM 1 Compositional Style 2 Words and Music 6 2. INTRODUCTION TO EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN 12 Of Poets and Poetry 16 Musical Matters 28 After the Fact 48 3. INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE COMPOSER AND THOUGHTS ON SINGING 51 The Future of Song 52 APPENDICES Appendix A: Brief biographies on the poets in chronological order 56 Appendix B: Transcript of an interview with Ned Rorem on September 2, 2009 66 Appendix C: List of songs, performance forces, and poets for Evidence of Things Not Seen 87 BIBLIOGRAPHY 89 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 101 iv LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Example 1 “From Whence Cometh Song” mm. 1-4 28 Example 2 “How Do I love Thee?” mm. 1-4 29 Example 3 “Life in a Love” mm. 1-7 29 Example 4 “Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water” mm. 1-4 30 Example 5 “A Dead Statesman” mm. 1-9 31 Example 6 “The Candid Man” mm. 1-4 32 Example 7 “A Learned Man” mm. 5-11 33 Example 8 “Hymn for Morning” mm. 48-58 34 Example 9 “Hymn for Evening” mm. 22-33 36 Example 10 “I Am He” mm. 1-18 38 Example 11 “Is My Team Ploughing?” mm. 1-10 39 Example 12 “Is My Team Ploughing?” mm. 60-76 40 Example 13 “Even Now” mm. 21-33 41 Example 14 “Evidence of Things Not Seen” mm. 1-8 43 Example 15 “Evidence of Things Not Seen” mm. 72-74 44 Example 16 “He Thinks Upon His Death” mm. 1-6 46 Example 17 “A Terrible Disaster” mm. 1-17 47 v ABSTRACT This treatise presents an exploration into the significance and merit of the song cycle Evidence of Things Not Seen by Ned Rorem. It explores Mr. Rorem’s compositional style, his philosophy on the relationship of text to music, and his personal insights as they pertain to the compositional process of the cycle. Furthermore, it will briefly explore the literary aspects of the composition’s texts, and examine a few of the more prominent musical devices Mr. Rorem uses to illustrate those poetic texts. Lastly, it includes a brief discussion on Mr. Rorem’s view of the future of song, song recital, and music in America. vi CHAPTER 1 NED ROREM Composer Ned Rorem, now in his eighty-seventh year, has been hailed by Time Magazine as “the world’s best composer of art songs.”1 He is known for his prolific number of song compositions, which now total over five hundred. Though he has contributed so much to this compositional medium, this is not the extent of his success. Mr. Rorem was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1951 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957. His symphonic composition, Air Music, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. In addition, he has produced multiple publications consisting of diaries, memoirs, essays, and music critiques. Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana but spent much of his childhood in Chicago, Illinois. While there, he studied piano with accomplished African-American composer and piano pedagog Margaret A. Bonds. In 1938 he began musical studies with Leo Sowerby at the American Conservatory in Chicago and two years later, enrolled at Northwestern University. Rorem immersed himself in the Chicago music scene and developed a love for jazz, especially for artists such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald whom he often heard perform live. In 1942 he left Northwestern University with an unfinished Bachelor’s degree in music, and continued his education at the Curtis School of Music, where he would later become an Instructor of Composition. At Curtis, he studied piano and composition with an emphasis on the works of Igor Stravinsky and the French impressionists. He was dissatisfied with his education, specifically the methods of his composition teacher Rosario Scalero, and he left the school in 1943. Rorem then moved to New York, where he worked as a copyist for Virgil Thompson, with whom he studied privately, and developed skill in orchestration and prosody that would prove useful in his future compositions. Further training led him to private instruction from Aaron Copland during the summer of 1946 and 1947 at the Tanglewood program. Rorem finished a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Juilliard School in 1947 and a Master of Music degree in 1949. In that same year, he moved to Morocco until 1952, when he moved to Paris and studied with Arthur Honegger. He returned to the United States in 1958. 1 Ned Rorem Official Website, “Biography,” http://www.nedrorem.com/index1.html. 1 During his compositional training, Mr. Rorem found song composition particularly rewarding. As he developed skill in this medium, he worked his way into the circles of such high-profile musicians, artists, and authors as Jean Cocteau, Georges Auric, and Francis Poulenc. He continued to compose vocal music, and his efforts yielded not only solo vocal pieces but many works for chamber ensemble and chorus. It was not the voice which first attracted Rorem to song composition but rather “poetry as expressed through the voice.”2 Rorem has also received much attention for his diaries, which often give graphic and descriptive accounts of political, private, and sexual aspects of his life. In the 1960s, he became a popular figure in the Gay Liberation Movement because of the unabashedly descriptive accounts of his gay lifestyle which were published three years before the Stonewall uprising in his book The Paris Diary. Mr. Rorem continues to write and compose. In May 2009, his latest composition, 11 Songs For Susan, sung by Susan Graham, premiered at Carnegie Hall. One may wonder from whence his drive and determination comes and what has kept him going at this prolific pace for so long. Rorem answers this way: “I compose for my own necessity, because no one else makes quite the sound I wish to hear.”3 COMPOSITIONAL STYLE Rorem’s music is difficult to describe in terms of a singular method or influence. One may describe it as a conglomeration of many elements which give him an eclectic style. Rorem composes what he deems appropriate without being bound by theoretical conventions or public approval. Though much of Rorem’s music contains large amounts of dissonance, he describes it all as tonal. He states that he thinks of all music in those terms, because he hears it in the way he was conditioned to hear it. “I still hear twelve-tone music as tonal, and still hear my own jagged airs as mere nursery exercises for blues singers.”4 2 James Holmes, et al. “Rorem, Ned.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http:// www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/48611 (accessed February 15, 2009). 3 Ned Rorem, Settling The Score (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), 319. 4 Ned Rorem, “Why I Write as I Do,” Tempo, New Series, No. 109, (1974), 39. 2 Many of Rorem’s songs display similar elements, such as rhythmic or intervallic references to musical gestures used in previous compositions. They may also utilize disguised elements from the work of another composer. An example of similarities in Rorem’s compositions is found in a comparison between the song “O Where Are You Going?” (the third song of Evidence of Things Not Seen), and in the third movement entitled “Whispers,” from Rorem’s 1969 piano concerto. In a few bars of the piano solo played near the beginning of this movement, we hear music that is almost identical to the opening bars of “O Where Are You Going.” Though not easily delineated, one may identify a “Rorem Sound,” in compositions through an examination of similar rhythmic patterns, melodic fragments (in both instrumental and vocal parts), and intervalic relationships found in his compositions. Rorem believes that his music is constantly changing and that one can never truly recapture or recreate a certain effect that may have worked for a past composition. Though Rorem’s musical style is difficult to describe in terms of stylistic periods, some suggest it has evolved in terms of Rorem’s incorporation of musical influences. Many of his compositions demonstrate the influence of a particular style or instructor with whom he was working at the time they were written.