ENGAGING MUSIC, BEAUTIFULLY RECORDED, SUPERBLY PLAYED
Pianists! Do not make the mistake of overlooking this new CD, even if the composer and the
performers are unknown to you. Everything here is magnetically pleasurable and worth many
hearings—-and many other performances. It contains the composer’s complete music for piano duo: a suite and a sonata.
Eric Ewasen (pronounced ee-WAY-sen) is an American composer with impeccable credentials who has taught at Juilliard for four decades and whose music is widely popular, although largely unknown to pianists. He is best known as a major composer of music for brass and symphonic wind ensemble. The pianists, Pamela Gordon and Pamela Penick, were long-time duo partners until the untimely death of Ms. Gordon. Both studied at the University of Alabama with Amanda Penick, the regional doyenne of piano teaching, and both have been on the piano faculty of that school. Their admirable playing is of a class that rises far above the level of local reputation.
The two works on this recording, the four-movement A Suite From the Cloud Forest (a four-hand version of Ewasen’s only solo piano work) and the Sonata for Two Pianos, share some signature qualities: voluptuous textures, often launched from soft or full booms in the bass and overlayered with quickly rippling figurations and singing melodies in the upper reaches of the keyboard; eminently pianistic writing that feels good under the hands; a tonal harmonic
language; singable melodies; and an overall sense that the piano is a glorious instrument to hear and to play!
The composer tells us that A Suite from the Cloud Forest is “a programmatic depiction of four images found in the tropical cloud forests.” “The Resplendent Quetzal” uses swells of glowing sound to reveal a spectacular bird of paradise. “Gumbo Limbo,” a tropical plant with long, wavy leaves, moves from impressionist-inspired evocation to music akin to a line drawing, with long, wavy lines of counterpoint (even a fugue). “Poor Man’s Umbrella,” a plant with “large, floppy leaves,” emerges through a leisurely, swaying rhythm that suggests a slow and lazy barcarolle. Finally, “Kiskadee,” portraying “a bird whose call sounds like its name” is a genial toccata with brilliance and rhythmic energy devoid of manic drive. Its jaunty tune has the spirit and bounce of a sea chanty. The entire suite lasts for about fifteen minutes. With its vivid colorings and Caribbean-inflected tunes and rhythms, it claims its own territory in the four-hand repertoire, although Arthur Benjamin’s less sophisticated but once ubiquitous “Jamaican Rhumba” could be a second cousin to it.
Ewasen’s four-movement Sonata for Two Pianos is a more imposing, longer work of twenty three minutes’ playing time. Though it has none of the Suite’s folk or cultural flavor, it has in
abundance the same kinds of ear appeal and direct emotional communication found in the Suite. It is beautifully cast for the two-piano idiom and it gives both players equal opportunities for virtuosic brilliance. The first movement explodes with energy, rhythms, and colors lavishly displayed, and proceeds through exciting build-ups to gorgeous climaxes. Starting with a slowrocking rhythm reminiscent of “Poor Man’s Umbrella” the slow movement introduces an upperregister melody, as of liquid glass. It returns memorably late in the movement. In between comes some counterpoint, often melded with characteristic rippling note patterns. After the quiet of the slow movement the brief scherzo is an attention-getter: lithe, perky, jazzy, and quick. The finale begins in a declamatory style imbued with luxurious arpeggios, and soon gives way to a toccata (though not so named) that exudes the confidence, optimism, and energy often identified with twentieth-century American music. An exciting combination of the colors and technical brilliance of the earlier movements brings the work to a grand, ovation-inducing close.
Both the Suite and the Sonata are clearly great fun (of the hard-working variety) to play. They
contain not an ounce of the nervous tension and anxiety found so commonly in music of the past hundred years and more. Rather, a sense of pleasurable contentment and even joy seem to be at the heart of Ewasen’s musical personality. (It is surely not just a coincidence that a broad, friendly smile dominates his publicity pictures.) He is well served by Pamela Gordon and Pamela Penick. I can’t imagine a better performance of either work than the live, unedited ones on this CD.
—Bradford Gowen
