Aaron Jay Kernis

5. War, with Interludes (1991–1995)

71 War, with Interludes 5 (1991–1995) by the end of the 1980s kernis had established a reputation as one of the most promising young composers on the contemporary scene. New York critics approached his concerts with their antennas up and pens poised. Allan Kozinn called him “an eloquent young composer [who] finds an excellent balance between abstraction and lyricism.” John Rockwell characterized him as “exuberant” and “fecund,” noting that he “happily mixes idioms.”1 Prizes and commissions continued to roll in as well: an NEA Composer Fellowship (1986), a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant (1987), awards from the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations (1988–89, for Songs of Innocents), and an ASCAP Young Composers Grant (1989), to name a few. Considering such positive acclaim,the next period may seem more than a little surprising. The years 1991–95 are marked by a proliferation of dark, brooding works responding to world conflicts, most notably, the Second Symphony (1991), a reaction to the first Gulf War; Still Movement with Hymn (1993), provoked by the war in Bosnia; Colored Field (1994), inspired by his 1989 visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau; and Lament and Prayer (1995), a memorial to the Holocaust. Was it, perhaps, the self-confidence brought on by increasing fame that in some sense empowered Kernis to take on these greater-than-life themes or to a a r o n j a y k e r n i s | War, with Interludes 72 imagine that in some way he could, by his art, effect a change in the world around him? Such a viewpoint in no way indicates a misplaced self-importance. Rather, it is essential to the very art of composition, to the communicative goal that most composers pursue: the reaching out, through personal self-expression, to move and commune with listeners, and ultimately inspire a transformation in them; to raise consciousness about what links humans to one another; to overcome, at least momentarily, the divides of politics, culture, and language. Lou Harrison once noted that “big works, such as . . . symphonies, are efforts to embody a viewpoint of the world. One doesn’t assemble a large orchestra and a large audience without feeling that in some sense the composer is, if not representing, at least expressing, some part of himself as the ‘general citizen.’ The composer becomes, in short, a kind of singer for others.”2 Harrison’s response to the 1991 Gulf War was to shut down; as a spokesperson for the “general citizen,” he simply lost his voice for several years. Kernis, on the other hand, cried out stridently in protest. Other composers, in contrast, resolutely stuck to abstract works, maintaining a distance between their artistic creations and the all-too-present violence around them. “Charles Wuorinen, your former teacher . . ., claims that you’re confusing art with politics,” suggested Jenny Raymond in an interview with Kernis in 1998. Kernis responded that contemporary composers have been made uncomfortable “in feeling inspired by the world at large.. . .Whether it was the SecondWorldWar [or] socialist-realist art,” it was deemed “too dangerous to take influences directly from the world, from events, from people’s experiences.” Historically, he reflected, “the rise of Darmstadt and post–World War II ultramodernism came as a specific response to Soviet-era repression.Writing music for the masses,writing music with a message, became connected in people’s minds with fascism.”3 But Kernis already had a substantial history of writing music with a message, dating back to his early Meditation (in Memory of John Lennon) and Death Fugue in 1981. Indeed, human tragedies have served as catalysts for some of his most profound works. Despite the predominance of war-inspired, sorrowful works in this period, Kernis also provided himself emotional relief by creating more buoyant ones. “I always need a break,” he says, “to something lighter, something different.” The virtuosic orchestral New Era Dance (1992) embodies that dichotomy within itself. Although it was fueled by images of the riots in Los Angeles following the announcement of the verdict in the Rodney King case, outbreaks of violence in Atlanta, and threats of the same in Kernis’s own Washington Heights area, the piece is at many points exuberant and even, at its end, cautiously optimistic— although the exuberance is consistently tempered by the threat of chaos. This 73 work and the comical Superstar Etude no. 1 for piano followed immediately on the heels of the Second...