Primarily known for his art songs and musical theater works, Ricky Ian Gordon owns a style that solidly sits in the tradition of such illustrious American predecessors as Bernstein, Sondheim, and Bolcom. The same goes for his idiomatically-wrought piano music, with a little help from the great 19th-century Romantics and early 20th-century French composers.
The samba-like Ring-A-Ding-Ding for piano duet evokes not so much Frank Sinatra’s catch phrase as a knock-off from Milhaud’s Scaramouche. Similar rhythmic ideas within a denser harmonic canvas characterize the third of Gordon’s Five Dances (Bear Dance), while the second (Waltz) might be described as Satie meets Sondheim. Number five, Joy, is an elaborate piano transcription based on Gordon’s song of the same name, jam-packed with counter themes and ending with a descending octave flourish pilfered from Chopin’s “Black Key” Etude.
I’m less enamored with The Caste System, whose three extended movements strike me as facile but derivative and overly long for what the music has to say; the loud, declamatory gestures are fake Copland, while the soft, plaintive passages could have been written by Ned Rorem in 1951–or 1965, 1972, and 2006 for that matter! But when Gordon resists the temptation to be clever, and lets his immense lyrical gift take organic wing, he comes up with music that’s both pretty and substantial, like the Desire Rag.
Judging from his extensive and enthusiastic booklet notes, pianist John Nauman’s devotion and commitment to Gordon’s piano music is never in doubt. However, I find his playing rhythmically stiff and texturally undifferentiated at times. The first of the Five Dances (Tango) is a case in point, where the melodies and accompaniments are not so clearly profiled and incisively articulated as they could be. More astute timing and dynamic contrast would have added greater timbral dimension and color to the Debussy-like melodic gestures in They Dance. By contrast, The Caste System’s introspective middle movement and the aforementioned Desire Rag benefit from Nauman’s singing tone and sensitivity. Perhaps this disc will give ideas to young pianists on the lookout for accessible, reasonably challenging, audience-friendly music by a young(ish) American composer.
