Album Notes

Aaron Jay Kernis THE FOUR SEASONS OF FUTURIST CUISINE and other CHAMBER WORKS Aaron Jay Kernis Before Sleep and Dreams Air Meditation (In Memory of John Lennon) The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine Evelyne Luest, piano Before Sleep and Dreams Andrea Schultz, violin Air Michael Finckel, cello Meditation (In Memory of John Lennon) Aaron Jay Kernis, piano The Eberli Ensemble The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine Evan Spritzer, narrator The four works contained on this disc span a twelve year period (1981-1993) in my compositional output and represent a broad range of styles and musical concerns. Consistent in all these pieces is a deep lyricism which is supported by the contrast and flow between consonant and dissonant harmonic worlds. My early student works were especially influenced by the process-oriented Minimalism as found in the early works of Reich or Glass; as time passed, the lyricism and stylistic freedom that is so essential to my work came more to the fore, particularly as I embraced a diverse range of musical influences in the years following graduate study at Yale School of Music. In 1981 I was a student at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, living not far from where John Lennon was brutally shot and killed. I found myself deeply moved by the outpouring of grief and love that attended that tragic and unexpected event, and in homage to Lennon, I composed Meditation (in memory of John Lennon) for cello and piano, premiering it later that year at the Manhattan School with cellist Jeanne Lewin. Simple and meditative, this gently pulsing and elegaic music utilizes techniques borrowed from Minimalism to stretch the tonal harmonies and melodic shapes of Lennon's beautiful song Imagine. This piece holds the seeds of my occasional yet ongoing concern with combining elements of popular and contemporary classical music to create a fresh and invigorating synthesis, seen in later works such as New Era Dance and 100 Greatest Dance Hits. I continued to use compositional processes based upon Minimalism until 1983, when I felt it was time for my music to become freer and less rigorous. Many works from that period were concept-or image-based, taking their inspiration indirectly from, for example, works of art I'd seen, ideas that interested me, or experiences that had been particularly meaningful. I developed an interest in children's' games and texts about children in the mid-eighties, and it was through these interests that the piano suite Before Sleep and Dreams was created. Its central Lullaby, which is often performed on its own, was composed initially as a separate movement in 1987 for pianist Anthony De Mare; the rest of the suite took shape in 1990. Before Sleep and Dreams is reminiscent of the spirit of works such as Schumann's Kinderscenen or Debussy's Children's Corner, and contains references to the Romantic and Impressionistic keyboard styles of Debussy and Chopin. The structure of Before Sleep and Dreams is based on my idea (not actual experience) of what putting a small child to bed might be like. The peaceful bell-like tones of Before lead directly into the gently hyperactive scherzo Play Before Sleep. Lullaby follows, with a melancholy and searching tone that suggests, through the rocking motion of the minor thirds that open and pervade the movement, the orchestral world of Mahler. Lights Before Sleep imitates, through a pulsing repetition as in my earlier Minimal works, the flashing and flickering lights I'd see as a young child on my bedroom wall just before I fell asleep. The sonorous final movement, Before Sleep and Dreams, closes out the suite with reminiscences of the earlier scherzo and, ultimately, a peaceful sense of repose. "The Futurist Cookbook is a late manifestation of Italian Futurism, a passionate and highly influential movement in art at the beginning of the century. When Marinetti published the first and most famous of his Futurist man