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After two decades as Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen bids farewell to the stellar musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by conducting them in three of his most fascinating compositions: Helix, Piano Concerto and Dichotomie. Virtuoso pianist Yefim Bronfman - who premiered the concerto in 2007 - commits to disc what is surely its definitive interpretation. The L.A. Times praised the concerto as “spectacular” and Bronfman “herculean.” Bronfman also aces his way through the two demanding movements of Dichotomie for solo piano. Helix, an orchestral piece describing the form of a spiral, further validates Salonen as one of today’s hottest composers.
Salonen (E): Helix
Salonen (E): Piano Concerto - Mvt. 1
Salonen (E): Piano Concerto - Mvt. 2
Salonen (E): Piano Concerto - Mvt. 3
Salonen (E): Dichotomie - 1. Mécanisme
Salonen (E): Dichotomie - 2. Organisme
March 2009
“Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto runs for more than half an hour, barely pausing for breath. Recorded live in Los Angeles's Walt Disney Concert Hall, this performance has virtuosity and no-holds-barred exuberance in abundance. Helix, written two years before concerto and less than a third of its length, is an even more uncompromising demonstration of textural overload... Performance and recording are stunning, the audience reaction at the end ecstatic. Bronfman's authority in this music is phenomenal...”
2010
“Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto runs for more than half an hour, barely pausing for breath. The turbulence and energy of the music give it a surreal quality, as if the whole history of the Romantic concerto were being feverishly revisited and reshaped in 2007 with a matter-oflife- and-death urgency. You may hear echoes of any number of august historical figures – Scriabin, Rachmaninov, even Respighi – but the aura is always contemporary. While those composers might recognise Salonen's rhythmic vocabulary, and the flamboyant rhetoric of his piano-writing, his harmonic palette is something else. Recorded live in Los Angeles's Walt Disney Concert Hall, this performance has virtuosity and no-holds-barred exuberance in abundance. On early acquaintance it was hard to find enough shape or sense of purpose within the welter of notes, the sheer density of the soloorchestra mix. But Salonen the composer certainly has the courage of his convictions. Helix, written two years before the concerto and less than a third of its length, is an even more uncompromising demonstration of textural overload, a noisy, relentlessly forceful response to the image of a spiral revolving at increasing speed. Performance and recording are stunning, the audience reaction at the end ecstatic. Dichotomie (2000) for solo piano provides a useful digest of Salonen's current compositional preoccupations. Its first movement deploys aggressive but constantly shifting rhythmic mechanisms whose origins lie in Prokofiev, while its second seems closer to the flowing spontaneity of the Ligeti Etudes. Bronfman's authority in this music is phenomenal and here, at last, you sense a genuine match between medium and message.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
Salonen (E): Helix
