As this is written, Esa-Pekka Salonen has been director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 13 seasons. Recognition of the unqualified success of his partnership with the Philharmonic was immediate, but symphony audiences in Los Angeles were slow to develop the same warm and fuzzy feeling for Salonen's work as a composer. It's not that they didn't want to like Salonen's music, but admittedly his arch-serial efforts composed back in Finland didn't exactly send pulses racing, as did his performances of Stravinsky and Bernard ...
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As this is written, Esa-Pekka Salonen has been director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 13 seasons. Recognition of the unqualified success of his partnership with the Philharmonic was immediate, but symphony audiences in Los Angeles were slow to develop the same warm and fuzzy feeling for Salonen's work as a composer. It's not that they didn't want to like Salonen's music, but admittedly his arch-serial efforts composed back in Finland didn't exactly send pulses racing, as did his performances of Stravinsky and Bernard Herrmann. The heritage of the film music community is at the very center of musical life in the "city of angels," and by incorporating some elements of its essence, Salonen's new compositions now have qualities his earliest works never did -- emotion, expressiveness, and a responsiveness to his environment. Although the three works featured on this maiden voyage associating Salonen with Deutsche Grammophon -- Foreign Bodies, Wing on Wing, and Insomnia -- are performed here by the...
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