Esa-Pekka Salonen

About

Salonen - whose awards as a composer include the Prix Italia - is perhaps not Mozart, but he is unquestionably one of the most highly regarded and successful conductors of his generation.

Among Salonen's weapons are his unusually clear beat, his effective use of rehearsal time, his consistently clear and dynamic interpretations and - more often in the concert hall than in the recording studio - his capacity to throw himself emotionally on to the level of a wild man when dynamite is needed.

Salonen's debut in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1983, at the age of 25, was an international sensation. He received an appointment as a regular visiting conductor with the Philharmonia, a record contract with CBS (now Sony) and a rapid tour as a visiting conductor with leading orchestras. He made a particularly good impression in 1984 in Los Angeles, where previous artistic directors of the Philharmonic Orchestra have included Zubin Mehta and Carlo Maria Giulini. Salonen was appointed artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1989, taking up the appointment in 1992.

Now the Los Angeles Philharmonic is attempting to challenge the supremacy of the US Big Five orchestras. The Philharmonic's youthful programming policy, with its emphasis on the present century, does not seem to deter audiences. Attendance figures are rising and, most important of all, the age structure appears to be falling.

"I felt from the beginning that the orchestra had enormous potential. All that had to be done was to turn its nose to the wind, and the energy raised the thing off the ground automatically. It's great fun, of course," Salonen remarks.

In the United States, Salonen's programming policy has aroused interest. In the same concert, he combines 20th-century classics that are already accepted by the public at large, such as Debussy, Mahler, Stravinsky, Sibelius and Nielsen, with newer names, such as Lutoslawski, Ligeti, Lindberg and Saariaho. Meanwhile, Salonen's love for, among others, Beethoven and Haydn ensures that more conservative concert-goers are not exhausted by a diet of contemporary music.

"To make contact with young people, it's better to play, for example, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring than Mozart or Beethoven. Rite of Spring gives a sense of recognizability even if the listener's only frame of reference is rock music," Salonen ponders.

Salonen has also been able to focus on contemporary music in his recording schedule. For instance, he is working on a comprehensive Ligeti recording project. The project has been delayed, but it is Salonen's intention to record the complete orchestral works of Ligeti under the composer's supervision.

At the turn of the millennium, Salonen is expecting to cut down on conducting and to concentrate on composition. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is planning to cut a disc of Salonen's orchestral works. In 2000, Salonen will be taking a sabbatical in order to write his first opera, to be premiered at the Aix-en-Provence music festival in summer 2001.

Salonen's best-known composition to date is probably LA Variations (1997), a riotous series of variations on the urban beat of Los Angeles. Salonen says that in his most recent works he has dissociated himself from the European Angst that was so important for post-war Modernism. "I believe we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We can find new power in the physical dimension... I am no longer interested in distance. I want to be near things and in the middle of things, not outside," he said in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat in September 1998.

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