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MONSTER SYMPHONY! What an intriguing title for a symphony. It was the title that drew me to take a look, just like a work entitled "Dracula" or "The Planets" or "Archaeopteryx" have turned my head over the years. Good marketing strategy. Sometimes they are a good find for me (Glass's Dracula), sometimes they are a lesson in deceptive advertising (Wuorinen's Archaeopteryx, which has nothing to do with an archaeopteryx).
I enjoyed this work. Always am searching for new composers and modern classical music, which is about as hard to find as a T-Rex without investing hundreds of dollars in blind purchases. The booklet notes advise that the symphony is a complete makeover of Martinsen's 1st Symphony. It states "...he chose to cut [the symphony] up and overwrite the fragments with quite different music... Over half has been cut away, and in the rest of the music monsters have been let loose"
The resultant symphony is in 3 movements. The first, Monster's Mating Call, actually sounds to me like the monster chasing its prey, from the prey's perspective, with music in the spirit of the old horror B-movie scores. The melody is partially presented in the minimalist practice of repetition, like you're in a dream being chased again and again. The middle movement, Baby Monster's Lullaby, depicts the tender yet horrifying birth of a baby monster. The final movement, Real Monsters, is sinister and depicts the visceral threat we would feel if being stalked from something really bad and hidden in the night. It can actually unnerve one listening to this work,... alone,... at night.
The work is dedicated to the composer's son "who taught me everything I know about monsters". This is a fun piece (despite the menacing final movement). It's very accessible. If you like to have fun with your classical music, and don't mind the lack of brooding over the great unanswerable questions of the human condition, then get this. Heck, you can get it used for a few bucks, the price of a double-pattie bacon cheeseburger,... and that's scary.
