Customer Reviews

Symphony 2 / Musica Celestis / Invisible Mosaic 3

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Aaron Jay Kernis writes strong music. By that I mean that his works are written with a firm sense of form and a sure grasp of harmony and color. I dislike using the word accessible, since that evokes the idea of dumbing down, pandering to the lowest common denominator. Kernis's music is accessible in a far more profound sense; it rewards the listener willing to pay attention with a complete musical experience. There are beautiful sounds, but there is also real emotional power, and perhaps above all, the music makes sense. It has harmonic interest and a sense of direction. This composer has been a real find for me.

This is another fine example of why I love this composer so much. His music is very modern, yet he holds on to melodies and chordal structures to prevent it from sounding "way out there". The Second Symphony is fiery and has moments of theatrical violence that put your shoulders into your ears, yet it is very musical and accessible to a large listening audience.

Although I believe I had heard Kernis's name mentioned before, probably on the radio, I cannot recall ever hearing any of his music before I picked this disk up purely on a whim on one of those nights that found me wandering around the classical section of the music store, wanting to buy something, but not quite knowing what to buy. (Gee, that sounds pretty sick, doesn't it... ?) The cover was hard to resist, with a human figure leaping through a fireball (but remember these words of wisdom from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey: "Our album covers lied to us, dude!"), so I took a chance and took this CD home to see what it contained.

This disk turned out to be one of the finest CDs I had purchased in quite a while, and judging at least from this recording, Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960 in Philadelphia) is a composer with a promising future. The three-movement Second Symphony is a dramatic work inspired by the Gulf War. Powerful stuff, powerfully performed and recorded, this symphony is a work you can sink your teeth into and play over and over again.

After the fury of the Second Symphony, the mood changes significantly with Musica Celestis, a deeply expressive piece for string orchestra that reaches toward Heaven with sincerity and conviction. This is absolutely lovely music, very touching, very pure and heartfelt.

Kernis's ability to express himself both in the violent fury of the Second Symphony and in the serene beauty of the Musica Celestis indicates that he is certainly not a one-trick composer. Were this CD to contain only these two works, it would be highly recommendable--but there's more.

Invisible Mosaic III stands in contrast to the first two selections on this CD by being more a work of pure musical expression than of emotional expression. Playful, inventive, and colorful, its aim seems to be more to charm than to move the listener, although it will definitely move your woofers from time to time. The ending bears a striking resemblance to the ending of John Adams's Harmonielehre, a resemblance that we will hope represents an act of homage from one American composer to another.

It is really exciting to discover such a wonderful CD by a composer just starting his career. If you are at all a fan of orchestral music by composers such as Shostakovich, Mahler, or Stravinsky, then I urge you to track down this well-recorded Argo CD and audition it for yourself.