Composers
Esa-Pekka Salonen
© Nicho Södling
Born: 1958
Brief Biography: Esa-Pekka Salonen has progressed through a number of stylistic phases during his career as a composer. In the late 1970s when he was studying with Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy, he wrote in a lyrical, neo-Romantic style; a few years later, after studying in Italy with Donatoni and Castiglioni, he adopted strict serial principals, notably in his Yta series of solo pieces. For a number of years after his conducting career took off in 1983, he had little time for composition, but began to write once again in the mid-1990s, mostly in larger forms, with a new sense of energy, joie de vivre and orchestral brilliance.
For a complete biography, click here.
Key Works:- Floof
(1982; chamber ensemble) - LA Variations
(1996; orchestra) - Dichotomie
(2000; piano) - Mania
(2000; cello, orchestra or ensemble) - Wing on Wing (2004; two sopranos, orchestra)
- Piano Concerto (2007; piano, orchestra)
- Homunculus (2007; string quartet)
| Career Highlights:- 1981 completes first large-scale work…auf den ersten Blick und ohne zu wissen…
- 1983 co-founds Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in Finland with Jukka-Pekka Saraste
- 1985 appointed chief conductor of Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
- 1992 appointed Music Director of Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
- 1995-6 Artistic Director of Helsinki Festival
- 1997 premiere of LA Variations in Los Angeles
- 2008 appointed principal conductor of Philharmonia Orchestra, London
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Critical Acclaim:
...there’s a poetic magic and an intense clarity underneath it all that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
— Diane Peterson, Press Democrat
Salonen’s recent orchestral scores have an assertive, luminous tonal confidence that seems to state ‘problem solved’ – even if it does so in kaleidoscopically rich colours.
— Martin Anderson, Tempo
Salonen is a skillful dramatist who masters the sustained tension in such a way that even his colleagues from the movie industry must be peering in wonder at this Finn.
— Manfred Müller, Kölnische Rundschau
Full Biography:
Esa-Pekka Salonen (born Finland 1958) studied horn, composing and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki during the 1970s and composing with Niccolò Castiglioni and Franco Donatoni in Italy. He initially considered himself to be a conducting composer, until in 1983 he undertook a performance of Mahler's third symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London at short notice and became a composing conductor virtually overnight.
Some twenty years later, alongside his international conducting career, Salonen has preserved his individual voice as a composer and each new work is eagerly awaited. His orchestral works are regularly performed and broadcast all around the world, and Floof and LA Variations have become established as modern classics. Two major retrospectives of his work - in Helsinki in March 2003 at Musica Nova and in Stockholm in October 2004 at the Stockholm International Composer Festival - have been presented to huge audiences and critical acclaim. A CD of five orchestral works is available on the Sony label (SK89158). Deutsche Grammophon, with whom Salonen has an exclusive recording contract, has released a portrait CD of his orchestral works performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer (CD 477 5375).
Salonen's first large scale orchestral work Concerto for saxophone and orchestra ('...auf den ersten blick und ohne zu wissen...') dates from 1980-81, when Salonen was studying in Milan with Niccolò Castiglioni. This was followed by Giro, which uses something of the same harmonic structure, and Floof, an experimental piece setting texts by the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. This ebullient and histrionic tour de force for soprano and small ensemble won the UNESCO Rostrum prize in 1992 and has been widely performed and broadcast in Europe and the USA.
Ten years were to pass before Salonen had the time to complete another large-scale piece, although he did continue to work on a series of solo works entitled Yta (surface), and a pair of virtuoso duos entitled Meeting and Second Meeting, the latter forming the basis for Mimo II for oboe and small orchestra, written in 1992.
It was in 1996 that Salonen took time out from his conducting schedule to compose a major orchestral piece, LA Variations, which was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he has been Music Director since 1992. The piece had a triumphant premiere in January 1997, and has since proved to be one of the most popular orchestral works of recent decades. LA Variations marked the start of a newly fertile composing life. In June 1997 Salonen made extensive revisions to Giro; the new version was premiered at the Avanti! Summer Sounds Festival in Finland. Another orchestral work, Gambit, was composed in 1998 as a 40th birthday present for his compatriot and great friend Magnus Lindberg; this was followed a year later by Five Images After Sappho, a song-cycle for soprano and ensemble co-commissioned by the Ojai Festival, California and the London Sinfonietta.
In order to devote more time to composition, Salonen took a year's sabbatical from conducting in 2000, during which time he composed the Concert Etude for solo horn, Dichotomie for solo piano, the cello concerto Mania for Anssi Karttunen and London Sinfonietta, and his first choral work - Two Songs to Poems of Ann Jäderlund for the Swedish Radio Choir.
The virtuosic Stockholm Diary for string orchestra was commissioned by the Stockholm Concert Hall Foundation for the Stockholm Phiharmonic Orchestra and Stockholm Chamber Orchestra to mark the occasion of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Composer Portrait at the Konserthuset in Stockholm October 2004.
Since his sabbatical Salonen has completed further works for symphony orchestra - Foreign Bodies (2001), commissioned by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Insomnia (2002), co-commissioned by Suntory Hall, Tokyo and Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Hamburg, Wing on Wing (2004), which received its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall in June 2004, and was a gift from the composer to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in honour of their new home, and Helix (2005), which was commissioned by the BBC Proms. In February 2007 Salonen conducted the New York Philharmonic in the first performance of his first piano concerto, dedicated to Yefim Bronfman who also premiered it. This concerto was a co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, the BBC, Radio France and NDR Hamburg.
External Websites
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