The Debussy, a shimmering, gorgeous setting of a kitschy Pre-Raphaelite text by Dante Gabriel Rossetti was beautifully played by the orchestra mezzo-soprano Monica Groop brought a good sense of mystery as the narrator, although soprano Joan Rodgers came on a bit strong for the distracted damsel and her erotic-religious musings. And the program allowed for the clever splitting of the always reliable Los Angeles Master Chorale-the women for the Debussy, the men for the Stravinsky. There is nothing to equal the meaningful experience of hearing a new piece of its time and place, made by the orchestra and its music director, something exceedingly rare in modern orchestral concert life.īut that also meant that “LA Variations” would inevitably overshadow an otherwise ambitious program that opened with Debussy’s cantata “La Damoiselle Elue” (The Blessed Damsel) and closed with Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio, “Oedipus Rex.”īoth are Salonen specialties, both works he’s recorded. That the audience loved “LA Variations” is hardly surprising. On an evening when much of the world was hearing more bad news about Los Angeles, as the slaying of Ennis Cosby was being reported, this kind of celebration of the city’s energy and creativity proved all the more necessary. And there is the sheer exhilaration of providing at least a thrill a minute during the 19-minute piece from a virtuoso orchestra that he knows intimately.Īnd the timing couldn’t have been much better. There is a rhythm of activity and a love for acrobatic complexities that are his hallmark. Still, Salonen puts it all together in his own way. The use of a synthesizer in the background to add a bit of glitz may have come from knowing John Adams Elliott Carter may have shown the way for some of the gorgeous and affecting high violin passages. Stravinsky and Nielsen don’t sound too far under the surface. Ligeti’s luminous orchestral palate probably gave Salonen the ideas for some of his more imaginative sonic effects. Lutoslawski seems to have been a model for the clarity of form and the immediacy of the sound.
At one point the piece pays specific tribute to Sibelius, but there are also less specific influences. Salonen knows what his concertmaster and first trumpet can do and then puts them together in ways other composers without such players on hand would likely never imagine.īut one also senses the composer actively looking to sources for inspiration as he attempts to lighten his style. “LA Variations” sounds original in great part because of the brilliant orchestration. And the piece takes off as a kind of concerto for orchestra. They fragment into sprightly themes that have a folk-music quality. The chords themselves are introduced in wonderful upward sweeps and arrive with a big, lush noise. Indeed, “LA Variations” begins with a couple of those complex six-note chords but instead of making stern 12-tone music out of them, jumps up and down.
No longer is his first thought of the day about complex hexachords, Salonen recently told Gramophone magazine, but rather “who the hell is jumping up and down on my stomach at 6 o’clock in the morning.” Even Salonen’s description of the specific variations uses a kind of musical baby talk-Big Chord, Big Machine. It is a proud statement, its composer wrote in his program note, of “the virtuosity and power of my orchestra.” It is a piece, Salonen has also said, that demonstrates finally the not-always easy assimilation of a “Finnish boy” into multicultural, freeway-obsessed Los Angeles.Īnd containing what the formerly cool, abstract composer says is his most joyous music, it also sounds very much the piece of a proud father whose composition habits have dramatically changed now that he has two young daughters. That is the way Esa-Pekka Salonen, speaking to a preconcert audience, described his new piece, “LA Variations,” which was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and given its first performance Thursday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. “Variations” because that’s the form of the piece. “LA” because he lives here and he wrote it specifically for his orchestra.
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