The concert was given by performers from a professional program called "Joy in Singing," which gives young singers performing experience and sponsors a series of concerts honoring American song composers. The concert was presented at Hunter College at 8:00 pm on Monday, April 27, 1998. The title of the concert was "A Rorem Retrospective," in which the songs of the composer Ned Rorem were performed by a soprano, a mezzo soprano, a tenor and a baritone, accompanied by a pianist. Some songs were performed by individual singers and other were arranged for a group with the singers either performing in succession (like a conversation) or singing together.
All of the songs in the concert were settings of poems by poets ranging from the ancient Greek Sappho to late twentieth-century writers. The manner of combining words with music varied considerably. In some cases, such as Ferry Me Across the Water, the words (by Christina Rossetti) and music worked together following the same rhythm. But in other cases there was a great deal of tension between the two. In The Lordly Hudson (words by Paul Goodman), for example, the sound of the piano seemed to be a background against which the singer was performing the words. Though the idea might have been to create a river behind the singer and allow the singer's words to float on the sound, the lack of coordination between the two made it distracting if the listener tried to pay attention to the words. In some songs the words simply sounded chanted along with a musical accompaniment which was often hard to connect with the rhythms of the singers.
Other songs did a better job of creating pictures that enhanced the meaning of the words. In Rain in Spring, for example, both the piano and voice followed rhythmic patterns that reflected the sound of rain falling on a surface. At first the rhythms were uncoordinated but they gradually smoothed out into a broader pattern that combined all the ...