One often tends to forget that Salonen for all his conducting
activities is also a distinguished composer. His comparatively
limited output consists of painstakingly chiselled works of
substance. This recent release offers two quite recent works
composed a couple of years ago.
The Violin Concerto is laid-out in four movements: Mirage,
Pulse I (slow), Pulse II (Scherzo) and Adieu.
The first movement opens in media res with torrents
of notes from the soloist mostly with light and subtle accompaniment:
celesta, glockenspiel, harp and vibraphone. At times, though,
the orchestra takes over briefly with weightier, darker pedal
points sometimes swelling to shattering, though short-lived
climaxes. The movement ends unresolved. The ensuing Pulse
I is the concerto's short, slow movement whereas
Pulse II is its somewhat longer Scherzo that “dances
and swings like a folk band from an alien planet”. However,
the core and emotional heart of the entire work is the final
Adieu, a beautiful lyrical meditation. It, too, ends
unresolved with the music gliding away calmly.
Salonen's Violin Concerto is clearly of the virtuoso
kind but the technical challenges, though real, are certainly
not gratuitous. The music is often warmly lyrical and quite
often beautiful. It is not easy but Leila Josefowicz rises superbly
to the many technical challenges while doing full justice to
the music's real expressive strength. Like some of his
Finnish colleagues such as Lindberg, Kaipainen and – to a certain
extent – Saariaho, Salonen's music has become more readily
accessible though it remains technically challenging. The Violin
Concerto is a splendid work that deserves wider exposure and
definitely repays repeated hearings. I hope that this magnificent
performance will encourage many other violinists to investigate
it and pick it up in their repertoire.
Nyx is the Greek goddess of night. She is also the mother of
sleep and death, as well as of the sensual pleasures, dreams
and day. I draw this piece of information from the accompanying
insert notes. One might thus think that the work is a Nocturne
but Nyx turns out to be a symphonic poem reflecting
the various attributes of the Greek goddess. The work opens
with a horn quartet that immediately suggests a nocturnal and
ominous mood. The music opens up and proceeds in an almost martial
mood soon interrupted by a more ruminative section led by the
clarinet. It then moves on through a number of contrasted episodes
by turns dreamy, troubled and menacing.
Salonen's music displays remarkable orchestral mastery,
no doubt gained from his long experience as a conductor. It
has much in common with that of his friends and colleagues whom
I mentioned earlier. It is certainly not easy to play but is
eminently accessible, often quite beautiful and strongly expressive.
As might be expected these performances are superb and the recording
does full justice to the music's wide dynamic range.
This is thus a self commending release were it not for its shamefully
short playing time of little under fifty minutes for a full
price disc.
Hubert Culot
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Leila Josefowicz (violin)