The acclaimed author of The Paris Diary, Pulitzer Prize–winning American composer Ned Rorem offers readers a mellow, thoughtful, and candid chronicle of his life, work, and contemporariesOne of our most revered contemporary musical artists—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and declared "the world's best composer of art songs" by Time magazine—Ned Rorem writes that he is "a composer who writes, not a writer who composes." Despite this claim, Rorem's pub...

The esteemed American composer and unabashed diarist Ned Rorem provides a fascinating, brazenly intimate first-person account of his life and career during one of the most extraordinary decades of the twentieth centuryNed Rorem is often considered an American treasure, one of the greatest contemporary composers in the US. In 1966, he revealed another side of his remarkable talent when The Paris Diary was published, and a year later, The New York Diary

A collection of insightful essays, interviews, and commentaries on music, art, and those who make it, from acclaimed author and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Ned RoremIt is a rare artist who can deftly cross the boundaries separating one artistic endeavor from another. Contemporary American composer Ned Rorem is one of the able few, not only "the world's best composer of art songs" ( Time magazine) but a remarkable purveyor of prose works, as well. Rorem...

Ned Rorem explores the state of contemporary classical music in a magnificent collection of personally selected essays and critiques of masterworks, lesser works, and their legendary creatorsPulitzer Prize–winner Ned Rorem's musical compositions are considered some of the finest produced in the past century. His literary works have been hailed as "scintillating" ( Time magazine) and "extraordinary" ( The Washington Post). Rorem's remarkable twin t...

A sterling collection of essays, commentary, reviews, and personal recollections on art, love, and the musical life, from Ned Rorem, award-winning composer and author extraordinaireNed Rorem, the acclaimed American composer and writer, displays his incisive, sometimes outrageous genius for artistic critique and social commentary with a grand flourish in this engaging collection of essays and diary entries. Fearlessly offering opinions on a wealth of subjects—from t...

A thrilling, poignant, and bold memoir of the early years and accomplishments—both musical and sexual—of renowned contemporary composer Ned RoremNed Rorem, arguably the greatest composer of art songs that America has produced in more than a hundred years, is also revered as a diarist and essayist whose unexpurgated writings are at once enthralling, enlightening, and provocative. In Knowing When to Stop, one of the most creative American artists of our time ...

A magnificent collection of essays, opinions, and reflections on life, culture, art, love, and music—always lyrical, witty, and brazenly provocative—from one of the most acclaimed contemporary American composersTime magazine has called Ned Rorem "the world's best composer of art songs." But his genius does not end in the realm of classical music. Rorem has a rare gift for writing, as well, and the wide acclaim that has greeted his memoirs, essay collection...

Acclaimed composer Ned Rorem delights and provokes with a fearless collection of vivid memories, critiques, and musings on life, music, and his worldPulitzer Prize–winning American composer Ned Rorem has been lauded for his art songs, symphonies, operas, and other orchestral works. With Critical Affairs, as with his other literary works, the great maestro once again demonstrates that he is a master of words as well as music. Winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylo...

In the earliest published diaries of Ned Rorem, the acclaimed American composer recalls a bygone era and its luminaries, celebrates the creative process, and examines the gay culture of Europe and the US during the 1950sOne of America's most significant contemporary composers, Ned Rorem is also widely acclaimed as a diarist of unique insight and refreshing candor. Together, his Paris Diary, first published in 1966, and The New York Diary,which foll...

America grows older yet stays focused on its young. Whatever hill we try to climb, we're "over" it by fifty and should that hill involve entertainment or athletics we're finished long before. But if younger is better, it doesn't appear that youngest is best: we want our teachers, doctors, generals, and presidents to have reached a certain age. In context after context and contest after contest, we're more than a little conflicted about elders of the tribe; when is it right to honor them, a...

Born in Budapest in 1903, Ervin Nyiregyhá (nyeer-edge-hah-zee) was composing at two, giving his first public recital at six, and performing all over Europe by eight. He was soon recognized as one of the most remarkable child prodigies in history and became the subject of a four-year study by a psychologist. By twenty-five, he had all but disappeared. Mismanaged, exploited, and insistent on an intensely Romantic style, his career foundered in adulthood and he was reduced to penury. In 1928...

Here is a dazzling collection from Joan Acocella, one of our most admired cultural critics: thirty-one essays that consider the life and work of some of the most influential artists of our time (and two saints: Joan of Arc and Mary Magdalene). Acocella writes about Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and chemist, who wrote the classic memoir, Survival in Auschwitz; M.F.K. Fisher who, numb with grief over her husband’s suicide, dictated the witty and classic How to Cook a Wolf;...