Ned Rorem for eleven

Synopsis

While many great composers have also been great conductors, this can be the exception rather than the rule. On today’s date in 1959, American composer Ned Rorem tried his hand at conducting the premiere of one of his own compositions, the chamber suite Eleven Studies for Eleven Players.

Rorem recalled, “I learned that the first requisite to becoming a conductor is an inborn lust for absolute monarchy, and that I, alone among musicians, never got the bug. I was terrified. The first rehearsal was a model of how not to inspire confidence. I stood before the eleven players in all my virginal glory, and announced: ‘I’ve never conducted before, so if I give a wrong cue, do try to come in right anyway.’”

Fortunately for Rorem, his eleven musicians were accomplished faculty at Buffalo University, and, despite his inexperience, he certainly knew how his new piece should sound. His suite incorporated a few bits recycled from music he had written for a successful Broadway hit — Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer — plus a bit from the unsuccessful play Motel that never made it past a Boston tryout.

Rorem’s own tryout as a conductor convinced him to stick to composing, although he proved to be a fine piano accompanist for singers performing his own songs. As for Eleven Studies for Eleven Players, it’s gone on to become one of his most-often performed chamber works.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ned Rorem (1923-2022): Eleven Studies for Eleven Players; New York Chamber Ensemble; Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, conductor; Albany 175

On This Day

Births

• 1866 - French composer Erik Alfred-Leslie Satie, in Honfleur

• 1901 - German composer Werner Egk, in Auchsesheim, near Donauswörth. His original last name was Mayer, and it is said (although denied by the composer) that the he chose the acronym E-G-K because it stood for “ein grosser Komponist” (“a great composer”).

• 1923 - American composer Peter Mennin, in Erie, Pennsylvania

Deaths

• 1935 - French composer Paul Dukas, 69, in Paris

Premieres

• 1779 - Gluck: opera Iphigénie en Tauride (Iphigenia in Taurus), at the Paris Opéra

• 1890 - Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana, in Rome at the Teatro Costanzi

• 1904 - Ravel: Schéhérazade, in Paris, with vocalist Jane Hatto and Alfred Cortot, conducting

• 1919 - Ravel: Alborado del Gracioso (orchestral version), in Paris at Pasdeloup Concert

• 1929 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3, in Paris, by the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris, with Pierre Monteux conducting

• 1933 - Cowell: Reel, for small orchestra, in New York

• 1939 - Prokofiev: cantata Alexander Nevsky, in Moscow

• 1946 - Martin: Petite Symphonie Concertante, in Zurich, Paul Sacher conducting

• 1960 - Ned Rorem: 11 Studies for 11 Players, for chamber ensemble, at the State University of Buffalo (New York), conducted by the composers

• 1990 - Rautavaara: Vincent, in Helsinki at the Finnish National Opera

• 2000 - Michael Torke: Corner in Manhattan, by the Minnesota Orchestra, Eiji Oue conducting

• 2001 - Christopher Rouse: Clarinet Concerto, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, with Larry Combs the soloist

Others

• 1922 - Music of The President’s Own reached homes across the nation when the first Marine Band radio program was broadcast

• 1969 - Leonard Bernstein’s last concert as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, having conducted 939 concerts with the orchestra (831 as its Music Director). Bernstein conducted 36 world premieres with the orchestra. He continued to appear with the Philharmonic as an occasional guest conductor until his death in 1990.

• 1978 - Philips Electronics of The Netherlands announces a new digital sound reproduction system from flat, silver Compact Discs.