Symphony (1991)
Of the three, I most admired Yarnell’s “Enemy Moon” and “Exit” – the two final movements of a symphony. “Enemy Moon,” dissonant and violently aggressive, gives the impression of an inexorable, carefully directed chaos, dominated by a spectacular part for a hyperactive tympanist and a general emphasis on the percussion section (at times, the sound of the snare drum called to mind nothing so much as machine-gun fire). “Exit” is calmly elegiac, replete with the ethereal, shimmering sound of bowed cymbals that heighten its evanescent qualities. The performance was expertly led by Oliver Knussen, who called the composer to the stage upon its completion and embraced her warmly.
It was hard to know what to make of Carolyn Yarnell’s “Enemy Moon” and “Exit,” this summer’s commission from the Paul Jacobs Memorial Fund, because these are the concluding section of a five-movement symphony. “Enemy Moon” begins excitingly with violent rhythmic tattoos from the percussion, which continue throughout the quarter hour of the piece, more or less obliterating everything else: You could see everyone playing away like mad, but you wouldn’t hear anything but a uniformly angry, pulsating mass of sound. The composer says the music deals with “basic and intense human emotions,” but beyond reason and coherence; a neighbor rightly called the piece a “tantrum.” “Exit” was quieter, a precisely calibrated cloud-sound piece, but whether it provides the “ethereal, transcendent” conclusion to the whole work the composer intended was impossible to tell in the absence of the first three movements.