Just in: Berlin Phil appoints Esa-Pekka Salonen as composer in residence
NewsThe orchestra has just announced the Finn as its composer in residence for the coming season.
From the press release:
If there is one dogma in Esa-Pekka Salonen’s understanding of music, it is the rejection of all dogmas. He doesn’t allow himself to be pigeonholed, but searches for music that excites and moves the listener – how he gets there is secondary. In the 2022/23 season, Esa-Pekka Salonen is the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Composer in Residence.
In his youth, one of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s main preoccupations was defending the true values of music. If a hit by Donna Summer was played at a student party, he might sit down at the piano with a friend and they would counter it with twelve-tone music for four hands. Now, Salonen can only laugh about such episodes, and no longer sees pop music and twelve-tone music as mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary.
Esa-Pekka Salonen’s music is highly expressive and speaks directly to the listener. It knows no dogmas and so it is difficult to pigeonhole. Flickering sound surfaces or dissonant chord clusters are found alongside rhythmic explosions or a sometimes late-Romantic harmony. “I write music that touches something in me. Initially, I also see myself as a receiver, as a listener. When I write a piece, I first play it in my own head. If the listener in me thinks it is good and interesting, exciting or moving, then I write it down. If I like it myself, there’s a good chance that others, maybe many, will like it too.”
Probably our greatest living classical composer.
Probably. But you’d be wrong. It’s Phillip Glass.
As long as I’m here already, let me say my piece:
Aside from exposure and networking, it’s a mistake for Salonen to take the Berlin post. He could do so much more for his composing if he used the San Francisco Symphony as his personal workshop, personal orchestra, symphony hall as his personal showcase.
But who can resist when Berlin calls?
If Salonen were serious about his composing, he would do well to resist the siren call and make San Francisco his experimental home.
If the compositions are good, they will travel the world over on their on, the composer doesn’t need to travel.
Is this meant in jest?
If a composer is alive, is he classical? Let alone great…
Did Salonen make such a claim?
Here`s an unwanted question:
Do the works of contemporary composer die with the composer – or after the premiere?
Scholars and musicians eagerly argue that the future of classical music depends on Saija Kaariaho`s new opera Pesa-Ekka and Salonen`s umpteenth masterwork for whatever instrument.
Here`s my guess: No. Bach, Händel, Mozart, Beethoven. If you are a Finn: Sibelius, too. Sorry.
I can’t take Salonen seriously since around 30 years ago he changed his position from an almost rabid critique of pop music to conducting an entire concert with pop artist Eva Dahlgren for Swedish television. On that occasion he was interviewed and talked about his fondness for pop music. Had he been honest he would just say that ‘we do everything for money’, or something so.
Same in my youth, as a geeky goofy classical music student I then discovered that pop music offered quite a good living to the classically trained…..
One may or may not take everything Salonen says seriously. However, one who doesn’t take the music he composes seriously, is depriving themself of the opportunity to hear wonderful compositions.
Why is this “just in”? It was announced several months ago during their season presentation.
It was in German
Exactly!
I guess it took a while for the Pony Express to swim across the Channel to London.
I’ve heard several pieces of his and never enjoyed a single moment of any of them. I don’t seek out performances of his music but they often force me to sit through one of his pieces before hearing whatever it is that I want to hear.
I have recordings of Yo-Yo Ma performing works of Haydn, Beethoven and Salonen. While I prefer some of these to the others, I am glad to be able to hear them all.