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Ned Rorem
1923 - 2022
United States of America, VA
Ned Rorem (23/10/1923 - 18/11/2022), an American composer, born in Richmond. He has been called by Time magazine "the world's best composer of art songs" * Received the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his orchestral suite Air Music * Has championed tonality throughout his career in his lyrical yet forthright music * His output spans nearly every musical medium, plus sixteen books * His recent chamber works have been toured or recorded by the Guarneri String Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet and the Beaux Arts Trio, among others * Vocal works have been performed and recorded by leading artists including Susan Graham and Brian Azawa.
Works by Ned Rorem include: Lions (A Dream) (1963) for jazz group and orchestra Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra (1993) String Quartet No.4 (1995) "I conceive all music...vocally. Whatever my music is written for — tuba, tambourine, tubular bells — it is always the singer within me crying to get out." — Ned Rorem
Requiescat
The text of this song is written by Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900). Duration: 2'49. Explanation of the titel: "Requiescat in pace" (sometimes: R.I.P.) stands for "may he/she (his/her soul) rest in peace" referring to a dead person.
♫ Requiescat © Linn Records CKD 342 Requiescat
Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast. I vex my heart alone, She is at rest. Peace, Peace, she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet, All my life's buried here, Heap earth upon it.
Requiem
‘Requiem’ (1950), for medium voice and piano.
The text of this song by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), an American poet. Appropriately it was Stevenson's own short poem, ‘Requiem’ (1880, from an 1887 collection), that was written on his tomb: Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie...
The text of "Requiem" by Stevenson:
Requiem Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill. The text of this poem has been used by Sidney Homer, Charles Ives, Ned Rorem, Ernest Whyte, Jonathan Lovenstein, Edward Bell, David Bedford and Luke Zaccaro.
The poet's requiem
For soprano solo, mixed chorus and orchestra: timpani, percussion, snare drum, large gong, cymbals, triangle, harp, piano, strings. Lyrics by: Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963), Stephane Mallarme (1842 - 1898), Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), Paul Goodman (1911 - 1972) and Andre Gide (1869 - 1951).
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