Music as Supplemental Meaning
Kernis’s score employs a variety of means to supplement, comment on and extend the meaning of the narrated complete text of “Goblin Market.” These means include musical characterization (associating certain instruments with certain characters in the poem), evocative musical dramatization that colours and comments on what is being described textually, as well as inclusion of musical passages without narration that elongate, add to, or offer musical comment on certain moments in the poem’s narrative. Through the musical meanings with which Kernis augments the poem’s textual meaning, listeners are offered a particular reading of the poem that is communicated in Kernis’s text/music hybrid.
the goblins
For instance, some of these added musical passages speak to Kernis’s interpretation of the goblins’ presence. Such meaningful musical gestures can be heard, for example, in the music of the “Introduction” section, and later in the slow quiet musical interlude that follows the narrator’s recitation of the “Golden head by golden head” passage describing the sleeping sisters that ends Part 1, and then again in the final passage in the score that follows the ending of narration in the “Epilogue.” Kernis’s score musically underlines how the danger posed by the goblins is a constant presence, waiting to emerge, a threat that even when overcome is never completely eradicated. For instance, the music-only “Introduction” section (pp. i-vi) precedes the beginning of the narrator’s speaking of the poem; as such, it is a purely musical addition to the meaning of Rossetti’s text. Marked “Misterioso,” this section opens with chimes that recall bells that would mark the time of day or summon individuals to a communal gathering. The music begins with a feeling that something very mysterious and possibly dangerous is beginning. The feeling is in turns ominous and seductive, and the effect is foreboding.
Throughout Kernis’s composition, the goblins are expressed by the woodwinds, as for example in Part II, scene 2, where these instruments introduce the goblin characters in advance of the line “Laughed every goblin when they spied her peeping” (Part II, scene 2, pp. 211-14) and continue to depict the goblins throughout this descriptive passage.
Furthermore, by introducing woodwinds at other key moments, Kernis introduces a goblin presence where Rossetti has denoted none in the poem. For instance, the goblins’ woodwind voice intrudes in the background of the peaceful idyllic slumber described in the “Golden head by golden head” passage (Part 1, scene 4, p. 129). The melody on the strings sinks in volume, pitch and tempo but then at the lowest point of this fading of music as the sisters sink more deeply into sleep, unexpectedly there comes a trill on the oboe that rings out against the slumbering chords of the other instruments. The woodwind voice associated with the goblins now lingers in the depths of the psyche of at least one sister, an example of a musical gesture that exceeds and supplements the verbal cues of Rossetti’s text. Of this passage, conductor Rebecca Miller commented that here the music settles into a “sweet-sounding D major, but the oboe and glockenspiel add a tart dissonance to hint at darker things to come” (Miller, p. 79). In representing the goblins, Kernis also uses “trills and flutter-tonguing (a distinctive effect made by vibrating the tongue or back of the throat) in woodwind and brass instruments, which evokes the way Laura is inhibited and robbed of strength by the goblins’ deadly fruits” (MacDonald, p. 6-7).
an unsettling epilogue
Similarly, in the poem's positive “Epilogue,” calm and harmonious music accompanies the poem’s final passage which begins “Days, weeks, months, years / Afterwards”--in which Laura, now a wife and mother, tells the little ones of her and Lizzie’s earlier experience with the goblins and celebrates the saving strength of sisterhood. But at the end of the Epilogue comes a musical comment that exceeds the textual meaning of Rossetti’s poem. As Miller points out “a bit like the mischievous prankster in Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, the goblins, now playful, have the last word. A little woodwind flourish at the final moment recalls their earlier flying, running, leaping, puffing, blowing, chuckling, clasping, and crowing. Kernis reminds us (though Rossetti does not) that temptation and darkness always threaten" (Miller, pp. 78-79). Kernis’s final mischievous-sounding woodwind passage recalls the goblins who charm and tempt with their luscious and seductive fruits, rather than the darker threatening and dissonant sound associated with them in more fraught moments in the poem. Though the woodwinds are playful-sounding now, the “deadly peril” that the goblins and their fruits bring remains very fresh in listeners’ minds, and this final burst of goblin energy and full woodwind sound (Epilogue, p. 357-58) suggests that the goblin threat has been only temporarily overcome; their seductive danger will persist to tempt other maidens.
Lizzie and Laura
Meanwhile, Lizzie and Laura are each heard in their own specific string instrument: the violin is associated with upright, virtuous and anxious Lizzie and the viola with the more sensual and curious Laura. For example, in these passages we first hear the viola as Laura is looking for the goblin men that she can no longer see or hear (Kernis and Rossetti, pp. 162-65), followed by Lizzie’s urging her to return home (pp. 169-71), while the goblins’ woodwind presence lingers hauntingly in the background. Interestingly, Laura’s viola part, which “sings in Romantic melodies” (Miller, p. 79) is often musically more appealing than the higher pitches and busy interjections of Lizzie’s violin line. As Miller comments: “The high-strung violin, in contrast, represents the overprotective Lizzie, who assumes through Kernis’s pen a sometimes frantic persona not evident in the written text” (Miller, p. 79). Kernis himself confirms this reading of Lizzie: “I saw Lizzie as constantly worried and shying away from confrontation until she finally finds her courage” (qtd in Miller, p. 79). Miller finds that the “contrast between the sisters is aptly shown in their first duet (Part I, scene 2): long sweeping melodies in the viola are interrupted by frenetic disjunct outbursts in the violin” (p. 79). After Laura eats the goblin fruit, however, her inner change is audible musically as “her romanticism becomes agitated frenzy” (Miller, p. 79).
Acknowledgement:
I would like to thank Madox Terrell for his editing of audio excerpts.
Sources:
Kernis, Aaron Jay. Goblin Market. Lyrics by Christina Rossetti, performance by The New Professionals Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Miller, narrated by Mary King, Perivale, Signum Records, 2011.
MacDonald, Malcolm. Liner notes. Goblin Market, composition by Aaron Jay Kernis, Perivale, Signum Records, 2011.
Miller, Leta E. Aaron Jay Kernis. Champaign, IL, U of Illinois P, 2014.