At 95, Ned Rorem Is Done Composing. But He’s Not Done Living.

NYT ^ | 10/24/2018 | Joshua Barone

[Borges]

“I know everything,” the composer Ned Rorem said on a recent afternoon, “but I remember nothing.”

Mr. Rorem — elder statesman of American art song, prolific prose writer, pioneer of gay liberation — was exaggerating. Now 95 years old (as of Tuesday), he is more forgetful than he used to be. But he actually remembers quite a lot.

Give him the right prompt, and he can dish at length on nearly every cultural luminary of the past century — he’s known almost all personally — and reminisce about Picasso’s Paris or the New York City of $25 rents. He’s a walking archive and anachronism.

[Gen.Blather]

A week after Beethoven’s death a man in the graveyard thought he heard music coming from Beethoven’s grave. He ran and got the priest. Of course, a crowd had gathered. The priest leaned over and listened. “Hum,” he muttered, “That’s his Ninth, but it’s being played backwards.” He stood and announced. “It’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s just Beethoven decomposing.”