Ned Rorem’s “Ode to Man”:
Musical Inspiration in Sophocles’s Antigone

Philip V. Barnes (John Burroughs School)

In 2005 the greatest art song composer of our generation, Ned Rorem, set for unaccompanied chorus an extract from Sophocles’s Antigone. The resulting work, entitled “An Ode to Man,” suggests that Rorem has lost none of his vigor and craft. How well the music reflects the English translation is open to question, as is the quality of the translation itself. Rorem is known for his care with words, as is clear both from his extensive corpus of songs and his autobiographical writings.

How he came to write this new “Ode” is described in this paper, as are the various challenges faced by its translator. These include decisions over metre, natural word stresses and rhythms, and the inevitable compromises between Sophocles’s intent and Rorem’s vision of his new work. Such issues inform the perennial debate in the arts between tradition and originality.

The paper includes audio samples of the new work taken from the premiere performance.