Symphony No. 2: Tales from the Realm of Faerie

My Symphony No. 2: Tales from the Realm of Faerie (“faerie” being the archaic  term for fairyland) called forth from my musical imagination a kind of rich musical tapestry intertwining all the colors and scenes of many fairytale worlds I have entered and loved. I had no particular fairy stories in mind while composing, but rather hoped that childlike ears might simply lose themselves in this world, as a child hearing fairy tales being read aloud — in swashbuckling fanfares, love themes, pointillist fairy dust, the surprising appearance of an evil sorcerer, music for a grand ball at a castle, or anything else one might wish to imagine from one’s own storehouse of fairy-tale dreams. In that spirit of free association, I have not given specific titles to each movement, but the four movements follow a traditional pattern of two serious moderato movements (first and fourth) framing a second slow movement and a third scherzo movement. Even more than a series of fairytale images, though, I have tried to capture in music a certain spirit of unspoiled beauty, innocence, nobility, hope, and heroic goodness that I associate with that literary genre, even within the seriousness of the traditional symphony genre.

In terms of style, I like to joke that my music is “completely conventional and without interest” – that is, to those who are looking for postmodern novelties and style mixtures, irony, and sardonic social commentary. However, I do like to think that it is full of interest for those who are simply looking for enjoyable listening, melody, emotion, and narrative. While it is fine if my music is pictorial enough to evoke cinematic comparisons, my true role models are those early 20th century tonal symphonists of the concert hall like Sibelius and Vaughan-Williams, who were free from the demands of on-screen dialog and scene changes to tell their epic tales in music alone. That is to say, here I employ the classical craft of large-scale forms and tonal structures, counterpoint, and development over a much longer time than film music usually allows. I am sometimes asked, “Doesn’t concert music nowadays have to be in an atonal, modernist, or post-modern style to be considered ‘new music’ or to be genuinely classical?” The answer to both is, “Absolutely not!” Is a freshly-baked croissant, warm out of the oven, disqualified from being called “new food,” because it was made with a classic old recipe from 1683? No, it is literally “new food” because it was just made! It is “classical,” because it uses a timeless recipe and timeless ingredients that, if well baked, will never become obsolete. And so it is with newly composed classical music using timeless classical techniques. Go ahead and enjoy it.

— Michael Kurek