Goblin Market (1995)

The composer calls his melodrama--based on a Victorian tale by Christina Rossetti--a "mini-Wagnerian music drama." It is really a darkly Freudian fable about two virtuous sisters, Laura and Lizzie, one of whom succumbs to forbidden fruit proffered by goblins...the score teems with pictorially suggestive activity as creepy and riotous as the goblins it depicts...a fun entertainment fueled by much shrewd musical invention.

The fact that it often sounds like a symphony orchestra in full cry is tribute enough to his skill in instrumentation: the range of color extracted from the players is quite bewildering...neo-decadent...catches to perfection the hothouse of Christina Rossetti's imagination and the forbidden fruits purveyed therein....Kernis's music is so vibrantly theatrical in shape and sound that he should have opera managements queueing at his door with commissions.

Aaron Jay Kernis is a remarkable composer...in his Goblin Market...you hear an irresistible variety of invention from the 13-piece ensemble...The music seems perfect...its combination of original invention with a broadly earlier style similarly brings the ear back and forth across the generation...this is an inventive treatment of music theatre.

Goblin Market...was captivating — with a rich, proto-Romantic score.