The first page of Ned Rorem's War Scenes bears the dedication, "To those who died in Vietnam, both sides, during the composition: 20-30 June 1969." The ecumenical nature of that sentiment, and the frank, often gruesome, content of the poems combine to make War Scenes one of Rorem's most powerful musical statements, and a human, rather than political, indictment of war.

The texts for the five War Scenes are excerpted (by the composer) from Walt Whitman's Specimen Days, a poetic memoir of his time as a civil war nurse. The first and last are philosophical, reflecting on the nature of war and its ugliness, and serving as bookends for the other three songs. The three inner songs, in turn, relate more specific events, more or less as they occurred, without comment.

Rorem's response to the Whitman texts is unique in his output as a song composer; the settings are uncharacteristically austere, dissonant, and aggressive in tone. At the same time he reaches a new level of sympathy and expression. The centerpiece of the cycle, both musically and poetically, is the fourth song, "Inauguration Ball," in which the speaker (presumably Whitman) has left behind scenes of unimaginable brutality in order to attend a social function. As the speaker is overwhelmed by the perfumed air and gentility of the ball, Rorem envelopes his words in the most grotesque of waltzes; brutal and unrelenting, this exaggerated dance music embodies the great irony of the situation, and haunts the speaker, for whom such extremes of luxury and suffering are irreconcilable.

The vocal writing in War Scenes is jagged and rangy, making use of large intervals and extreme dynamics; the piano writing is rythmically complex and often highly percussive. As a listening experience, however, the songs are not so daunting. The dramatic effects are clear, and the texts are plainly communicative. The first performance was on October 19, 1969, by Gerard Souzay and pianist Dalton Baldwin, at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C..



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