On today’s date in 1991, Herbert Blomstedt led the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in the premiere of a cantata entitled “Genesis,” by the American composer Charles Wuorinen. This was the culmination of Wuorinen’s four-year association with the San Francisco Symphony as its composer-in-residence.

The most famous setting of the Biblical Genesis story is Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation,” but early on Wuorinen decided his cantata would be a non-narrative, non-programmatic treatment, although incorporating a Latin version of the Genesis text.

Musically, as the music critic Michael Steinberg noted, Wuorinen’s style fuses the physicality and punch of Stravinsky with Schoenberg’s struc­tural principles. The resulting music, which some have dubbed “maximalist” is complex and demanding – just as its composer intended.

Charles Wuorinen writes, “In any medium, entertainment is that which we can receive and enjoy passively, without effort, without our putting anything into the experience.  Art is that which requires some initial effort from the receiver, after which the experience received may indeed be entertaining, but also transcending as well.  Art is like nuclear fusion: you have to put something into it to get it started, but you get more out of it in the end than what you put in.”

Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938) — Genesis (Minnesota Chorale and Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond.) Koch 7336