On its face,
Ned Rorem's music should be much more popular than it is, due to its accessible tonality, interesting harmonies, and melodiousness -- the composer's strongest suit. Yet because of a certain vagueness of character that makes much of his music seem enigmatic in mood and emotionally ambivalent,
Rorem's works remain more admired and talked about than truly appreciated, and in many cases, they are still infrequently recorded. Listening to this 2007 Centaur release of
Rorem's three piano sonatas, one can easily detect an agreeable,
Poulenc-like esprit in the Sonata No. 2 (1950); find shades of jazz, popular songs, and neo-Classicism in the Sonata No. 3 (1954); and feel the influence of
Aaron Copland in the Sonata No. 1 (1948); all of these positive features should attract many curious listeners to these pieces, and the robust and sympathetic performances by
Thomas Lanners may go far to persuade skeptics of these pieces' value. However, the music in all three sonatas feels superficial and seems stylistically imitative, and despite the obvious competence of
Rorem's invention, the results are not deeply affecting or strikingly original.
Lanners delivers the music with great skill, sensitivity, and enthusiasm, and ordinarily that should be enough to make the sonatas convincing. But they are strangely hard to remember for any salient features; though they leave a pleasant impression, in the end they are expressively elusive and unsatisfying. Centaur's sound is clean and focused, with realistic presence.