I think that Ned Rorem (1923-) is best known for his writing of words (diaries and music criticism), secondarily for setting words (poetry) to music (art songs), and least of all for instrumental compositions. I’ve never heard “Air Music,” which won the 1976 music Pulitzer Prize. I’m unmoved by his "End of Summer" somewhat underwhelmed by his three symphonies written during the 1950s and his by his 1998 double concerto for violin and cello, but like his 1975 "Book of Hours," his 1985 organ concerto, his 2002 cello concerto and like his second piano concerto (1951) even more. (There's a large corpus of Rorem works I have never heard.)      

It is surprising that the 1951 concerto, premiered in Paris in 1954 by Julius Katchen, was not recorded until 2006 and that it was then recorded in Glasgow, though it is not surprising that the recording was done for Naxos American Classics. The Naxos catalog includes recordings of Rorem’s symphonies, double concerto, and other compositions.

Though Rorem wrote it in Fez, Morocco, the Second Piano Concerto sounds Franco-American, the tenser music being in the same realm of musical discourse as Leonard Bernstein’s First Symphony, “The Age of Anxiety” (1949). Indeed, Bernstein’s symphony seems to me to be a piano concerto.

The concerto is less dissonant than “The Age of Anxiety.” The melodies sound French to me, or at least the ghost of Maurice Ravel — specifically his G Major Piano Concerto — is palpable (in a friendly way). Jazz touches seem less like Bernstein’s than those of “Les Six” composers from the 1920s Francis Poulenc (who Rorem pursued in person) and Darius Milhaud (who was long ensconced at Mills College in Oakland, California). I guess the final movement sounds most like Bernstein, the middle one most like Ravel.

The Second Piano Concerto had the traditional three movements. The structure of the Cello Concerto from half a century later has a more jagged, disjointed structure, with eight movements, each with a jaunty title (see track listing below). Rather than a big Romantic (or neo-Romantic) finish, the final movement, titled “Adrift” floats quietly away with harp and strings and the solo cello. I especially like the timpani playing in the second movement.

The opening of the third and fourth movements sounds back in the “Age of Anxiety” era. The fifth is a novelty in that the cello continues to play a single note, while other instruments seem to pose questions that it does not answer. The penultimate movement with the cello plucked is dance-like, though a dreamy (druggy?) dance.


Pianist Simon Mulligan, cellist Wen-Sinn Yang, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by José Serebrier all seem to play well, though I obviously have no other experience of this music with which to compare it. The most demanding sounding virtuosic display is in the third movement of the Second Piano Concerto with Poulenc/Milhaud joie de vivre (a lighter touch than Bernstein, even in  “Fancy Free”). The preceding movement has some Rachmaninoff-life arpeggios. The sound engineering is very good, and the recording makes me wonder why the Second Piano Concerto suffered the fate of initial acclaim and subsequent lack of performances. (Pierre Boulez famously said that audiences hear new pieces once while the composer has the pain of hearing them twice: the first and the last performance at the same time. But this concerto sounds more accessible and crowd-pleasing in being melodic and tonal, unlike the harsh sounds of much symphonic music of the 1950s and Boulez’s own early compositions.)

Serebrier, who has recorded other Rorem music, provides lively program notes with some quotations of communications from Rorem. These concerti are not just curiosities (as the symphonies seem to me to be), but deserving of programming: better late than never, right?

©2012, Stephen O. Murray

Tracks and Timings

Piano Concerto #2
1. Somber & Steady    15:58
2. Quiet & Sad    12:33
3. Real Fast!    5:44

Cello Concerto 
1. Curtain-Rise    1:32   
2. There & Back    4:00   
3. Three Queries, One Response    7:16   
4. Competitive Chaos    1:54   
5. A Single Tone In A Dozen Implications    1:25   
6. One Coin, Two Sides    4:31   
7. Valse Rappelée    1:25   
8. Adrift    2:57 

Recommended: Yes