The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem 1961-1972

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Last night in precisely three hours they recorded Ariel. The trio of performers worked as one, or rather, their separate tentacles curled from a single psychotic jellyfish, if that makes sense. Phyllis Curtin sang's Plath's words with the urgency of the poet making them up; Joseph Rabbai's clarinet was disturbingly right, like a jester skirting the already devious meaning of a mad ruler's statement; and Ryan Edwards' pianism bound firmly the strands of these solo voices. I monitored with Horace Grenell, having little to say (players get the point without our saying anything, or don't get the point even after hours of talk); a composer should verbalize on all music except his own). Meanwhile Gene Cook took seven hundred photographs, and Phyllis' mother, Mrs. Smith, acted as audience. Mrs. Smith, who had never attended a recording session, was overwhelmed by the fact of it, as well as by the music which she'd heard her daughter so often rehearsing alone. She asks, "Doesn't it drain you to compose a piece like that?" On the contrary, it fills me. In taking anxiety's notation for anxiety itself, Mrs. Smith reacts according to the artist's plot.

excerpt from 'The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem 1961-1972' pp. 410 (192 words)

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