The Paris Diary & The New York Diary 1951-1961

Composer Ned Rorem has an exquisite way with a song, distilling musical essences to provide miniature masterpieces that linger in listeners' minds. He is also, as these diaries prove, a facile, if somewhat undisciplined, writer. And someone mired in self-absorption. At the time Rorem wrote his diaries, he was distinctly callow and obsessed with being "pretty"; yet the picture that emerges of him in his youth is not entirely attractive. The book will be of interest to those who are curious about the lives of significant composers, both for the small insights that he shares about his composition process and for the details of his life and the circumstances under which he wrote his music. His vividly sketched picture of gay life more than a generation ago widens the audience of this book. --Sarah Bryan Miller