Facing the Night: A Diary (1999-2005) and Musical Writings

by Ned Rorem

Beginning with The Paris Diary in 1966 and continuing through four subsequent volumes, Ned Rorem, one of the world's foremost living composers, has chronicled his life with a directness and honesty rare in American letters. He writes as he lives, introducing himself to readers as an artist and as a gay man, a citizen of the world of the arts, as at home in Rome or Paris as he is in New York. But in this latest installment, Rorem finds himself alone after the death of Jim Holmes, his companion of 32 years. Grief-stricken, he struggles to find his way in the world, while seeing his 80th birthday celebrated nationwide with concerts and programs befitting a celebrity. As he heals, Rorem starts to snap with his usual sharp observations, riffing on topics as diverse as defining opera for the New York Times and considering personalities as famous as Judy Collins and Gore Vidal. With his typical (some might even say brutal) candor, disarming wit, and self-knowledge, Rorem once again provides insightful reflections in elegant prose that demonstrates his ease in a form few writers dare to brave.

Genres: Music

416 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2006

About the author

Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923) is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.

Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana and received his early education in Chicago at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, the American Conservatory of Music and then Northwestern University. Later, Rorem moved on to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and finally the Juilliard School in New York City.

In 1966 he published The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem, which, with his later diaries, has brought him some notoriety, as he is honest about his and others' sexuality, describing his relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noël Coward, Samuel Barber, and Virgil Thomson, and outing several others[vague] (Aldrich and Wotherspoon, eds., 2001). Rorem has written extensively about music as well. These essays are collected in anthologies such as Setting the Tone, Music From the Inside Out, and Music and People. His prose is much admired, not least for its barbed observations about such prominent musicians as Pierre Boulez. Rorem has composed in a chromatic tonal idiom throughout his career, and he is not hesitant to attack the orthodoxies of the avant-garde.