MUSIC : The Maestro’s Progress Report : Esa-Pekka Salonen, who takes over the Philharmonic in October, talks about L.A., the orchestra’s image and the control factor

Esa-Pekka Salonen was making a very important debut. The incipient music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic was meeting the ever-supportive ladies who lunch.

The time: 10 a.m., a relatively ungodly hour, the morning after his first local concert of the season. The place: a private dining room atop the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

This, not incidentally, had been Salonen’s first concert anywhere in four months. The Finnish conductor, 33, insists on spending long periods off the podium, composing. But here he was, boyish, soft-spoken, polite and a bit bleary, ready to answer some probing questions.

His casual attire--a black jacket, polo shirt and jeans--clashed a bit with the posh surroundings, as it did with the traditional image of a baton-wielding matinee idol. (Try to imagine Carlo Maria Giulini in short sleeves.) As Los Angeles will soon find out, Salonen doesn’t automatically respect traditional images.

The Pucci, Gucci and Fiorucci ladies didn’t seem to mind a bit. The sky was falling outside, but this climatic technicality affected neither attendance nor enthusiasm. The Philharmonic Affiliates turned out en masse and exuded instant sympathy.

Ernest Fleischmann, the ubiquitous managing director of the orchestra and would-be kingmaker, warmed up the crowd. “We are on the brink of a golden age,” he announced. “This is going to be the unbeatable musical combination of our time.”

Hyperbolic virtuoso that he is, he went on to claim that “no other conductor in the world has achieved so much . . . and is so full of potential.” Assessing the relationship between Salonen and the orchestra, Fleischmann invoked the magic word: “chemistry.” Examining civic implications, he proclaimed the Salonen-Los Angeles partnership “the most exciting musical adventure that any city has ever embarked on.”

Although that was a hard act to follow, Salonen did his reticent best. In a few brief remarks, he complimented the ladies for their “enthusiasm and achievements.” His English is crisp, fluent, slightly tinged with a cosmopolitan accent that one might not immediately associate with Scandinavia.

He lauded the Philharmonic for its “energy and eagerness to work.” He acknowledged the threat of certain “economic trends.” He cited the role of the orchestra as “guardian of the past” but, at the same time, asserted a rallying challenge.

“Concerts,” he told his traditionally conservative audience, “should be provocative, irritating maybe, and satisfying. We can’t just sit there and play over symphonies as before. The orchestra should play a role in everyone’s spiritual growth.”

The muted battle cry was followed by a panel discussion chaired by another admiring Philharmonic executive and dominated by a trio of admiring Philharmonic players. Amid the compliments, Salonen cast himself as something of a democratic despot.

“Making music should involve the exchange of thoughts,” he said, “not commands.”

He also cast himself as something of a cultural philosopher.

“It’s all about diet. Music is not always enough. The mind needs the right kind of nutrition.”

Later, over a mug of coffee in his private dressing room, Salonen reflects on his coming-out party. He waxes realistic.

He understands the extra-musical factors that govern music in America. He knows that the private sector must do here what the government does in Europe. He certainly doesn’t underestimate the importance of image-making and fund-raising.

“An orchestra must stay alive,” he says simply, “and an orchestra needs money. In Europe, one deals with politicians and bureaucrats. The process is behind the scenes. Here it is a public event. At the moment I kind of prefer it.”

Salonen learned some useful public-relations lessons when he took charge of the Swedish Radio Symphony in 1985.

“In Sweden,” he says, “I somehow became the face of classical music. Perhaps it was because of my age.” He sighs. “I did a lot of TV and so on. It’s a tough role. It implies a certain dichotomy. I speak for myself but at the same time I speak for classical music in general.

“There are phenomena one doesn’t believe in, especially in contemporary music. In fact, there are lots of things I dis like. But when I speak of contemporary music, we are all in the same boat, all in trouble. I have to see myself as representative of views wider than my own. It is difficult.”

His biggest challenge in Los Angeles may be persuading the public to share his sense of adventure. He faces the challenge with what may be a characteristic combination of pragmatism and idealism.

“I am going to take a calculated risk. We will quite soon see whether we find a new audience or only lose this one.” He laughs nervously at the prospect.

“We will see whether this audience trusts my judgment, whether it accepts what goes on and supports it. We can’t tell till we try.”

He acknowledges that any change in public taste and perception must be gradual, and that his timing is awkward.

“Unfortunately,” he muses, “the current deficit has forced the orchestra to curtail its contemporary series. From my point of view, that is very embarrassing. It is alarming. It’s my first season and all of a sudden, the contemporary music is practically gone.” He punctuates the summation with a poignant shrug.

Salonen sees audience education as part of his mission. “The Philharmonic must be an active element in the cultural life of Los Angeles. School concerts, neighborhood things--they are very important.

“We must look to the future. L.A. is interesting. It must deal with a multicultural population. Its example will be followed by other cities--even in Europe, where borders are opening. The work of the orchestra must somehow take ethnic variety into consideration.”

But, one wonders, does this attitude take the traditional elitism of a symphony orchestra into consideration?

Salonen nods. “There are two aspects of the snob element. The unhealthy aspect involves social status. It concerns rubbing shoulders with people of class. I think that is a vanishing snobbism. The other kind is healthy, an intellectual and cultural snobbism.”

He raises some rhetorical questions. “Why is the Philharmonic not part of the contemporary art scene? Why does the audience that goes to modern museums and performance-art events not go to Philharmonic concerts?”

Enter Salonen the populist. “We need to get the intellectually curious crowd to concerts.”

And how does one reach that crowd?

“I wish I knew,” he answers, almost sheepishly.

“The image of the Philharmonic must change. This is no shrine of high art, no holy temple. This building (the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion) is a typical example of that kind of thinking. It is European thinking, with heavy-rooted traditions--all that marble and all those chandeliers. I want something more approachable. I want the Philharmonic to bring things forward.

“We don’t want to exclude anyone, but the audience’s motives should be clear. One goes to a concert to hear the music.”

The last remarks betray a bit of irony. At his concert the night before, the enthusiastic subscribers virtually destroyed the serenity of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with a chorus of unstifled coughs and, worse, ill-timed applause.

Was Salonen upset?

“Of course I was,” he admits.

And was he surprised?

“Well, it has happened to me a couple of times before, but only in Scandinavia.”

He apparently conducted the players better than he conducted the listeners. “A lot of people coughed between the last two movements of the Mahler, and a few clapped. I wanted to stretch the silence as far as possible, then start with the clarinet. It was impossible. At the end, I tried to create a maximum pianissimo, and somebody out front exploded prematurely.”

He does not mask his exasperation. “Maybe not everyone in the audience is desperately interested.”

Although Salonen looks forward to living in Los Angeles, he hasn’t yet decided what part of town he will call home. For the current visit, he and his Welsh wife are renting a place in Santa Monica.

The eminently eligible bachelor got married last August to Jane Price, then a violinist in the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. They are expecting a child in May.

Asked if Mrs. Salonen is prepared to assume the social duties associated with being First Philharmonic Lady, he grins. “As a professional musician, she knows what these things are about.”

Starting in October, the music director will spend at least 12 weeks a year at the Music Center and two more at the Bowl, in addition to unspecified periods devoted to recording, overseeing tours and undertaking special projects. His Los Angeles contract precludes appearances with any other U.S. orchestra, and his contract in Sweden expires in 1994.

Los Angeles will learn more about his theatrical instincts the season after next, when he is to join the Music Center Opera for a Stravinsky diversion, “The Rake’s Progress.”

The most prestigious item on his immediate calendar is the unprecedented engagement with the Philharmonic this summer in Salzburg. The conductor’s youth and avant-gardish sympathies had caused him to be “banned”--his word--from the Austrian festival during the reactionary reign of the omnipotent Herbert von Karajan. Now all that has changed.

Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will hold the stage for several major concerts. More important, perhaps, they will take to the pit for the much-ballyhooed premiere of Messiaen’s “St. Francois d’Assise.” The opera will be given a sure-to-be controversial production by Peter Sellars.

“The world is upside down,” reflects a patently wry Salonen. “Boris Yeltsin wants to join NATO, and ‘St. Francis’ is virtually sold out in Salzburg.”

Another festival in the Philharmonic future is Lausanne. Salonen and his Californian charges have been invited to Lake Geneva for the spring of ’93.

Despite his Finnish roots, the conductor disclaims any involvement in the imminent staging of Aulis Sallinen’s “Kullervo” by the Finnish National Opera in conjunction with the Music Center Opera. His laconic responses to queries on the subject may, or may not, be significant. With Salonen it is sometimes difficult to tell.

Has he heard the score?

“No.”

Is he close to the composer?

“Not particularly.”

For many seasoned observers, the biggest question regarding Salonen’s future here can be reduced to two words: Ernest Fleischmann.

The managing director of the Philharmonic first brought Salonen to the Music Center when the conductor was virtually unknown, back in 1983. Strong-willed, able and not noted for self-deprecation, Fleischmann likes to take charge on all levels.

That hardly vexed Zubin Mehta as music director, for he was too busy with a jet-set career to want to mind the local store. Difficulties were virtually nonexistent during the Giulini era; the Italian maestro’s involvement tended to cease when he laid down his baton.

According to Andre Previn, however, Fleischmann wanted to usurp many of the chief conductor’s prerogatives. The resultant friction was intolerable.

Salonen seems unworried. “I regard Los Angeles as a great experiment,” he says. “This is a great challenge. If we can pull it off here, it will be something.

“This means I will have quite a lot of presence here, even in the daily routine. I have no reason to think that Ernest will cause any problem with this. I talked with him and the board. Everyone agreed on this basic principle:

“The music director is the one who makes the artistic decisions. The managing director is someone who supports these policies by definition.”

The division of labor strikes at least one outside observer as reasonable but unrealistic.

“It is written in the contract,” Salonen insists. After a pregnant silence, he adds reinforcement:

“Ernest has been very supportive all these years. I haven’t had any problems, ever. I think I’m hopeful.”

He thinks he’s hopeful. The qualification is, no doubt, fraught with meaning.