Customer Reviews

Esa Pekka Salonen: Wing on Wing

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Es-Pekka Salonen has quietly become one of the more important composers of our time and this generous CD presents three of his most powerful works that demonstrate this fact. Many may have felt that Salonen's stature as a conductor would lure him away form the composing arena, but this young genius quietly goes about his multifaceted busy career as a gifted conductor (he has honed the Los Angeles Philharmonic into one of the world's great orchestras), as an inventive conceptual programmer, as a festival participant in the best of the world's festival of music, and as a warmly confident communicator of the necessity of classical music in our lives. While he first gained notice for his emphasis on the meticulous readings of 20th Century composers (Lutoslawski, Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Messiaen, etc), his audiences now find him exploring the Old Masters with as much attention to detail and finding the inner core of the composers' wishes. His time as a conductor is now.

And perhaps it is that constant commitment to revealing performances of great music that has nurtured his own creative process. This CD clearly finds Salonen with a recognizable musical language, with indelible marks that are found in all of his compositions, with a clear and inimitable voice.

Salonen goes for clarity of line: his themes are born, grow, mutate, and miscengenate, all in the rich palette of the very large orchestra. His use of the percussion section echoes a bit of Stravinsky, a bit of Adams, a bit of the Slavic school. His use of the woodwinds and brass are as exotically creative as those of Shostakovich and Lutoslawski, and his massive spectrum of writing for strings has the urgency of the great Romantic composers like Wagner's 'Tristan', Sibelius, Ravel, etc.

'Foreign Bodies' (2001) thrusts open with a range of color that seems almost climatic - until the work fuses into an elegiac second movement, and subsequently ends in a mysterious dance that flutters and flies as lightly as the opening movement is grounded in declaration.

'Insomnia' (2002) is a richly evocative work about the colors of night - not the serene view of other composers but the place of nightmares and fears and disturbances that make space without light a table for restless tossing and turning. The use of the chorale mode opens the work eventually giving over to Salonen's 'machine' effect of churning instruments against each other. The work moves to an adagio in the low registers of horns and tubas signaling the arrival of sleep only to be blissfully interrupted with the rise of the colorful sun announcing day with ascending brass themes, artfully unresolved as befitting the unknown that accompanies dawn.

'Wing on Wing' is perhaps the most majestic and richly creative work by Salonen to date. Composed as an homage to the new, extraordinarily brilliant Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the brainchild creation of architect Frank Gehry and acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, this work combines the broadest spectrum of orchestral color with the human voice, both sung and spoken. The work is about water and wind, echoing the curvilinear structure of the hall's concept. The term 'wing on wing' is taken from the nautical term of opening the foresail and mainsail to maximum amount of surface of capture all of the wind available. Salonen blends the string choirs with the brass choirs and punctuates the movement with every percussive instrument imaginable to unfurl this ship on high seas. To this he adds the wordless vocalises of two sopranos (with impossibly high tessituras!) and the recorded spoken words by Gehry about the artistic process. In the end the words 'as in a dream' float throughout the hall over the luxurious palette of the orchestra.

The performances here are well done with Salonen conducting the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and soloists. And as fine as this recording is, there is nothing to compare the live performance of 'Wing on Wing' in the hall for which it was written, a hall that has encouraged Salonen to place his forces throughout the building to reveal how even the smallest sound in the farthest corner can be heard with utmost clarity. But this comes as close as can be expected. Grady Harp, February 2005

I'm no expert in Esa-Pekka Salonen's music, but this is absolutely great stuff! His works may sound a bit edgy (especially for a beginner of contemporary music), but they're pretty tonal, unlike the serial music of Boulez or the textural works by the early Penderecki. I am even more spellbound by his vivid orchestration; his works really exploits various timbres from different sections of the orchestra. Lastly, Salonen seems to treat writing music objectively; he believes "musical expression is bodily expression", that "there is no abstract cerebral musical expression." Therefore, the impression that I get is that every moment, every sound in his music is like sparks of everyday energy we witness.

If you have the guts to listen to contemporary Classical Music, this album would a be one of my biggest recommendations. Ultimately, I think his music is accessible to a wide audience.

Invading foreign bodies, bacteria, sailing ships as architecture; it seems to me that Salonen is going Sci-Fi with his new compilation of his latest works. And so maybe it is not a co-incidence that I feel that actually all of the pieces here, especially Wing-on-Wing, sound like classical versions of the music of a Jean-Michel Jarre playing to a movietheme...

Having said that, I find this music very very attractive, at times a bit nervous, yet always innovative and interesting, especially in terms of orchestration and color. Salonen is a master of orchestration. Wing-on-Wing is a true highlight to me, and can stand right side by side with his earlier opus magnum, LA Variations. Especially the two sopranos shine, and the 'duets' they perform against the orchestra are truly stunning.

Highly recommended.

PS: When does he make his next recording with the LA Phil?

This is a stunning issue. On this showing, Esa Pekka Salonen the composer is right up there with such living luminaries as John Adams or John Corigliano, or even outshine them, and this magnificent collection of his recent works bears that out. This is, above all, "tonality rediscovered." There are unmistakable traces of minimalism, serialism, and even atonality in every piece on this disc, but they are all powerful and lyrical by turns and highly accessible. Sibelian points of reference can also be felt, particularly in Insomnia, reminidng us that he is, after all, a Finn who learned composition from Eijojuhani Rautavaara. A major issue in every way.

I heard Salonen conduct his work "Insomnia" with the Chicago Symphony last season. It was an exciting piece, performed well, and the audience that night received it with great applause. When I saw this new recording was available I ordered it right away. After several listenings I'm even more impressed with Salonen's compositional skills. All three works on this CD are impressive. The pieces are accessible and highly listenable. They challenge you to meet the composer in his world of sound. The best new music has a sense of purpose and direction, and this music doesn't disappoint. "Wing on Wing" includes soprano vocalise as another element of color.
If you respond to this music as I have, then try his earlier CD titled "LA Variations". This CD, "Wing on Wing" is recommeded without reservation. Salonen is an important composer/conductor of our time.

Salonen as conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic has been brilliant. He has elevated the orchestra to world-class status. When he steps down as conductor after this season, he will be greatly missed. His recordings of Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, Bruckner and Herrmann are the best I've heard. He has marinated himself in the music of past composers. This is clear both on Wing on Wing, and on L.A. Variations. Salonen's original compositions are as much his own as they are a distillation of all that he has conducted before (Debussy, Stravinsky and Bartok most obviously, plus two other flavorings of Poulenc and Barber - I wish he would tackle all of Barber's major works). Salonen's music is cohesive and organic (not jagged and purposely disoriented like so many other modern classical pieces). And most importantly, his music is alive and optimistic and restless with energy, always busy and interesting. His music captures every aspect of modern life in the city, and addresses also what exists in our hearts and minds and souls. I can't stop listening to his original compositions, and I look forward to what he creates in the future (I will be very happy when his Piano Concerto is recorded and released). Until then though, I have L.A. Variations and Wing on Wing. And Wing on Wing is a life-affirming experience. This is must-have for any modern classical listener.

This DG piece was the first on the label to feature the works of Esa-Pekka Salonen, who after a long hiatus in the 1990s had begun to write more and more. Here Salonen leads the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in three post-millennial orchestral pieces.

"Foreign Bodies" for orchestra (2001) is especially meant to express Salonen's conviction that true musicality is related to the body. Its three movements are exhibitions of an uptempo, steady pulse, intricate rhythms and absolutely insane overscoring. I think it must be exciting to watch this piece played (and conducted) in a concert. However, for me it seems to be to have little staying power for the home listener. A lot of this material was taken from his solo piano piece "Dichotomie", and it worked much better there than in orchestral form.

"Insomnia" (2002) is a single-movement orchestral work along the same lines, but much more successful for me, probably because it is extremely relentless energetic and I just love these kind of caffeinated modern pieces. Of all Salonen's works that I've heard, after the Piano Concerto I enjoy this the most.

"Wing on Wing" for two sopranos, orchestra and tape (2004) spatially separates its two sopranos and has recordings of architect Frank Gehry occasionally played through a loudspeaker. This is by far the most fluff of all Salonen's writing, and that "Wing on Wing" is the longest piece on the disc makes it all the worse. It's just all ascending scales and tone clusters. Perhaps the spatialization of this piece made it work (it was written for the opening of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles), but on disc

Salonen has written some fine pieces (again, I love his Piano Concerto!), but he's also wildly inconsistent. I'd recommend this disc only for people who have heard some of the pieces and are sure they like them.

This CD has three works by Salonen:

Foreign bodies
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This is a piece that to me seems like a modern concerto for orchestra. There is plenty of Orchestral color. The intense motor rhythms - reminds me of Prokofiev 2nd symphony. This piece consists of three movements labelled: part 1 - body language, part II - language and part III - dance. The music tends towards John Adam's style. All three movements have power and intensity with irregular rythymic changes and at times very fast complex polyphonic music. First movement (body language) has persistent energy and pounds on with repetitive structure, as well as unique new musical ideas continuously evolving. Second movement is somewhat similar to an adagio but not a conventional one. Third movement has lot of counterpoint, eccentricity and color. There are parallel musical threads running one on top of the other with a repetitive minimalist style. Foreign Bodies uses a fully extended mordern orchestra.

Wing on Wing
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This is a work in one movement and was written by Salonen in 2004 as a homage to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The movement starts with strings and recorded samples of spoken words (The spoken word and mixed samples used in the piece at different points are actually voice samples of the Architect of the Walt Disney Concert Hall - Fank O Gehry). Two female coloratura sopranos accompanied by woodwind instruments follow. These sopranos have parts three times in this piece, punctuating the work. The music moves from slow passages, to moderate to intensely fast and ferocious sections with equally intense percussion. This is quite an abstract work and was hard for me to comprehend in simple musical terms. There is perhaps a greater extra music association here that the composer was mapping the music to; On the other hand, perhaps it is completely abstract.

Insomnia
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This is a brass heavy and jazzy composition. In the beginning, the music is fleeting and light-footed in it's orchestral color. Gradually the musical weight grows heavier and heavier with brass elements, and incessant drums. The music grown restless, impatient and inducing a sense of panic and heightened neuroticness. A sense of equilibrium of undecidedness and a sense of never being able to relax and settle down. It a musical kaleidoscope of sections where the music feels random and every changing; from lighter orchestral weight to extremely dense - passacaglia type passages; then Adagio type passage followed by extremely fast and full orchestral repetitive phrases.

Of the three works on this CD - the three movement 'Foreign Bodies' and the work 'Insomnia' are accessible within one hearing. 'Foreign bodies' is instantly likeable due it's endless vigour and intensity. 'Wing on Wing' is more abstract. Try this CD - You might need several hearings to get aquainted with these works but in the end it can prove to be rewarding; if nothing else the works on this CD by Salonen are interestingly different and never dull.

I heard Insomnia at a Chicago Symphony concert a few years ago and during intermission went to the symphony store to purchase it only to be told that it had not been recorded yet. I was delighted to find that it was available in the Wing on Wing CD as it is mesmerizing.

Recently Esa Pekka Salonen was here in New York City. He was charismatic, forceful and literally made the music soar at Alice Tully Hall. I quickly bought this CD and another of his and sat down to enjoy the music.

The music on this CD, however, was not to my liking. It was a little too modern for me and I tried listening to it again the next day but came away with the same feeling.

I also think that the sound was tinny and while there was nothing wrong with the disc the orchestra did not sound complete despite Salonen's solid direction.

I'm glad I have it in my collection but it's not for everyone and unfortunately I'm one of those persons.