Early in the Morning (1955)

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

O You Whom I Often and Silently Come

Little Elegy

Alleluia

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal (1963)

O You Whom I Often and Silently Come (1957)

Little Elegy (1949)

Alleluia (1946)

More “the American Poulenc” than “the American Schubert” - impressive though his catalogue of not far short of 400 songs certainly is - Ned Rorem is a master miniaturist with much wit, little affectation and a rare sensitivity to both the atmosphere of a poem and the natural inflections of its words. Early in the Morning, written during the formative years he spent in Paris in the 1950s, could almost be by Poulenc himself, expressing its affection for Paris in a spontaneously melodious vocal line and nostalgic waltz rhythms in the piano part. At just over four minutes, Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal is one of the longest of Rorem’s songs. It is also one of his most ambitious in terms of texture and harmony, its arpeggiated pedal-sustained dissonances having more in common with Britten than Poulenc (although it is nothing like the British composer’s setting of the same words), its avoidance of easy lyricism diverting attention from the voice to the fragrant piano part.

The Whitman setting, O You Whom I Often and Silently Come, is both one the best known of Rorem’s songs, irresistible as it is in its natural simplicity, and one of the shortest. Little Elegy is similarly modest in proportion and technique, the vocal line set against gently chiming piano chords, and similarly effective. The earliest song in this group, Alleluia, was written during the period - between the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School - when the young composer was studying privately with Virgil Thomson and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland, whose vigorous Americanism might well have had some influence here. While the lyrical middle section might well be more characteristic of the Rorem temperament, the jazzy outer sections of this one-word song are brilliantly done.