Concert review | Exciting Kernis world premiere

This week's Seattle Symphony program featured two large works, one that is very well known, and one that was not known at all. The world premier performance of the Symphony No. 3, "Symphony of Meditations," by Aaron Jay Kernis was an exciting event. Kernis, who has composed for the Seattle Symphony before (this score is dedicated to maestro Gerard Schwarz and his wife, Jody), draws on massive instrumental forces, as well as vocal soloists and the full set of voices in the Seattle Symphony Chorale.

This symphony is written in three movements that create their own liturgical flow, as though they had always been part of a temple cantor's repertory. The text, though, is translated from the Hebrew verses of a medieval Sephardic poet.

The overall theme of this symphony is the relationship of small humans to their infinitely huge God, and Kernis embraces the lopsided nature of this relationship. The third movement, titled "Supplication," is vast, dwarfing the first two movements combined. Tenor soloist Paul Karaitis sat quietly in the back for most of the symphony, while baritone Robert Gardner did most of the solo work. These are not accidents.

Nor is the huge dynamic range of the music itself. At times, the fortissimo of the orchestra and chorus were bursting with so much life, the walls of Benaroya seemed unable to contain the sound. And then, as in the second movement, it settles down to a calm but passionate intimacy where concertmaster Maria Larionoff and soprano Hyunah Yu were trading delicate lines, punctuated by Ben Hausmann's melancholy oboe.

It's a shame that the Kernis symphony won't be on Saturday's version of the concert, though the substitute — Beethoven's First Symphony — is nothing to sneeze at.

What will be repeated on Saturday, thankfully, is Gustav Holst's best known work, "The Planets." This is a piece that everyone has heard, but that not enough people have heard in live performance in a great hall. There's something about the wood textures in the ominous bow-bouncing opening of "Mars," and the extra warmth one feels being in the room with "Jupiter."

The very best moment, one that can never be recreated in a recording, happens at the very end, in "Neptune, The Mystic." The women of the chorale make an appearance from the highest balcony that is so beautiful, it will stop your breath. The word "ethereal" gets knocked around too casually; this sound truly gives it new meaning.

Information in this article, originally published June 26, was corrected June 26. Performances are June 26 and 27, not July 26 and 27.