The Tibetan Book of the Dead

“It’s a requiem that takes into account rebirth, which composer Ricky Ian Gordon handles with a litheness, occasional sly humor and an artistry that announces a creative rite of passage.Though highly melodic, the score has few traditional tuneful hooks, preferring to create a continuous musical organism that has many of the mercurial qualities of Olivier Messiaen. The music goes whatever direction it’s needed with a harmonic freedom and purposefulness… you’re aware of having taken an important musical journey.” 

“Music serves innumerable functions. It allows us to weep, to rejoice, to mourn, to celebrate. Or, in the case of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a liberation through hearing, to exorcise demons. At its Houston premiere, the cathartic impulse and function of the work resonated radiantly….it revealed to Houstonians a composer with a facile but compelling gift for song. His opera was, to me, another exciting moment in the accelerating emergence of a collective American style of art music rooted equally in the country’s vernacular and cultivated traditions.

Gordon is a gifted composer. His opera contained several regally radiant songs- extended works that are a new format drawing from the sophisticated Broadway style of, say Stephen Sondheim, and the traditional aria form of opera.

The entire work cosseted feelings. The musical accompaniment was felicitous.

Gordon’s style was distinctive.”

“Ricky Ian Gordon is best known as a composer of songs that are singable in cabarets, on concert stages, just about anywhere. He treats words-weather by Emily Dickinson or Langston Hughes-with tender loving care, wit, and once in a while, sass, but I can’t remember a saccharine or maudlin tune from him. All of which made him the right man to make an opera out of Jean Claude Van Itallie’s 1983 ritual-play The Tibetan Book of the Dead or How Not To Do It Again. Gordon, who used a composer’s prerogative and raised the ante of the subtitle by changing it to the more music evoking a liberation through hearing.It’s emotional Honesty and increasingly affecting score will win lots of admirers.

 

Gordon’s ease with tonal tunes and harmonies stood up nicely against his shrewdly placed spikes of dissonance.” 

“Ricky Ian Gordon writes in the idiom most common among contemporary composers: eclecticism. This approach has the obvious advantage of freeing the artist from a stylistic straitjacket, but also carries the considerable risk of producing work that is meandering and formless. Gordon avoids that pitfall in The Tibetan Book of the Dead by stringing together spacious melodies, jazzy riffs, Stravinsky-like neo-classicism and even a bit of the blues within a unifying tonal landscape.The most compelling aspect of Gordon’s music is his boldly colorful orchestration. More than a third of the pit orchestra consisted of percussion instruments, including xylophone, glockenspiel, timpani, snare, cymbals, tambourines, wood blocks, and gourds. A small string section, horn, trumpet, flute, clarinet, piano, and harp completed the lively ensemble. Gordon’s ability to balance this unusual combination of timbres is masterful. His sound is never overtly percussive, but fluidly adjusted for the theatrical needs of the opera. Gordon uses a somber kind of lushness as well as a glittery brightness to reflect corresponding dramatic elements in the libretto.” 

Gordon could write glorious music to the telephone directory if he wanted to… the music soars, and we’re reminded of just how magnificent Gordon’s music can be. A major piece of new music.

A succinct one-act piece…Gordon has written tuneful things that range through blues and gentle rock, cowboy rhythms and pop. The final chord-unresolved-provides a glimpse of eternity- one of the memorable things in this score. 

Gordon’s music has potency and power and is especially notable for the sympathetic and incisive support of the text. His score is accessible, even breezy at times, and yet always responsive to the words. Gordon is not hesitant to use vernacular, even pop music idioms in adding additional texture and clarity to the meaning of the text. There are also passages of surpassing beauty…