Esa-Pekka Salonen, the conductor laureate and former music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is in town for a series of concerts highlighting his works as a composer. This weekend features a festival of his three concerti and the original dedicatees of the pieces. Salonen's cello concerto for Yo-Yo Ma (2/8), piano concerto for Yefim Bronfman (2/9, 2/10), and violin concerto for Leila Josefowicz (2/11) are paired with Heinrich Biber's seminal "Battalia" and the fervent Symphony No. 7 by Beethoven.
The cello concerto draws its material from a previous piece that Salonen composed for solo cello; he felt that this material was inherently orchestral and would thrive in that idiom. By setting the cello in dialogue with the orchestra, with small selections of instruments, and even with itself, Salonen explores the full dramatic potential of the orchestra and nearly exhausts the physical and mental capacity of the soloist. The piece begins in a series of nebulous textural clouds from which the solo cello line weaves in and out, hence Salonen's conception of "chaos to line." After the cloud subsides, Salonen contrasts the dense first movement with a moment of respite for the solo cello. In a stunning incorporation of the electroacoustic medium, the cello's phrases are recorded in real-time, then echoed and layered upon one another, essentially allowing Yo-Yo Ma to produce stunning polyphony on his own. Salonen complements the timbral idiosyncrasies of the cello with an alto flute and a suspended cymbal. This sparse orchestration ends with the cello mimicking the sound of birds, and as the texture of birds thickens via the electronics, the orchestra enters with a lush harmonic pad underneath. In an almost stereotypically Finnish sequence, perhaps even recalling the naturalistic episodes of Jean Sibelius, Salonen crafts a sound world reminiscent of birds flying over the countryside. When the sonic density subsides, the cello is liberated and the primal third movement sets its course. Virtuosic bongos, militaristic timpani, and Quixotic cello passages drive the third movement into rhythmically punctuated barbarism. The clouds of the preceding movements have cleared and the minimalistic, motoric affectations of Salonen's music become apparent. The inherent difficulty in balancing a cello with an orchestra is also apparent, but despite consistent lack of pitch clarity, the vigor and vitality of Yo-Yo Ma's articulations cut through the ensemble and interplay with the percussion. The concerto fades with the cello's ascent into the stratosphere, to a high B-flat, as the piece ends with Salonen turning away from the orchestra and cueing the return of the recorded sounds from the second movement.
The soloist's and the orchestra's energy, virtuosity, and meticulous attention to the details of the score, effect a performance at the very limits of human ability. "After all, all those symbols on paper mean nothing until somebody gives them life."
Tickets to see the Los Angeles Philharmonic are available on their website, with substantially reduced ticket prices for high school and college students.
Image from the Chicago Tribune