Rorem’s bitchy recollection of a “collapsed romance” inspired Picnic on the Marne: Seven Waltzes. When his romance with Claude Benedick was hot in the 1950sRorem was lovey-dovy. But in 1967, all that was left was rancor. Rorem’s The New York Diary (1967) spews his anger. “Sweet memories will always be soiled by your action,” he writes. “Loving afternoons on the banks of the Marne before we met are preferable now. And you name me cloying because I’d rather be called angel than bitch. My life did not stop with you; it did, however, stop and start with you.”
Rorem’s title alludes to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph Sunday on the Banks of the Marne (1938). There’s no evidence (that I’ve known of) of Rorem’s familiarity with Paul Bowles and James Schuyler’s Picnic Cantata for Two Pianos (1953). But in 1992, he praised Bowles’ music: “Your Picnic Cantata is really a good piece, not the least because its energy does not flag from start to finish.
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Sunday on the Marne (1938)
Written for saxophone and piano, Picnic is joyless and angular, consistent with narrative titles bristling with unhappiness: “Driving from Paris,” “A Bend in the River,” “Bal Musette,” “Vermouth,” “A Tense Discussion,” “Making Up,” and “The Ride Back to Town.”
Featured Image: Ned Rorem. Picnic on the Marne. Boosey & Hawkes: London, 1984. First edition of the score.
See Ned Rorem. The Paris Diary: George Braziller,1966; The New York Diary. New York: George Braziller,1967; The Paris Diary & The New York Diary 1951-1961. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.