Other entertainment

About this book

As a musician who is also a writer, Ned Rorem claims that some years ago the IRS, at a loss as to how to pigeonhole him for their purposes, settled on the designation of "Other Entertainment" when noting the source of his livelihood. Thus the title of this fourteenth book by a composer who has been universally acclaimed for his prose, and a writer who has won a Pulitzer Prize for his music. He goes beyond music in this collection, however, reaching in some instances even. beyond "entertainment." These essays examine in depth such contrasting human subjects as Billie Holiday and Arnold Schoenberg, Lillian Hellman and Kazuo Ishiguro, Benjamin Britten and Josephine Baker, Noel Coward and Marguerite Duras, Joe Orton and Jean Cocteau. And in addition to the reviews, profiles, tributes, and even obituaries, there are dialogues with critic John Simon and with physician Lawrence Mass that center on homosexuality, as it obtains both in the arts. and in general conversation. Two pieces about new American opera, and one on the old chestnut Carmen, demonstrate yet again Ned Rorem's informed wit on a subject near to his heart. Even nearer his heart are portraits of cherished colleagues Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson, plus snapshots of still more friends and idols, from Debussy, Ravel, and Sarah Orne Jewett to Myrna Loy, Libby Holman, and Jane Bowles. Finally Rorem paints very personal and. impressionistic landscapes of the artists' colony Yaddo, of Carnegie Hall, and of Nantucket island.