Salonen: A Writing-Conducting Showcase in NYC

As he approaches the end of his one-year sabbatical from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen took the stage of Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall on Sunday for a rare evening that brought together his disparate roles as conductor and composer. For this concert, part of Carnegie Hall’s Making Music series, he was both at once, leading the admirable Ensemble Sospeso and special guests in three of his own recent works as well as music by Witold Lutoslawski and Steven Stucky.

Which is not to say that composing and conducting are always so different for Salonen, as he told Ara Guzelimian, Carnegie Hall’s artistic advisor, in an onstage discussion that took place between the works. At his best moments, Salonen said, the music flows through him in a similar way; creator and interpreter can be as one. The real difference between the two, he added, is in what he called their metabolisms: Whereas conducting can fill him with adrenaline and excitement, composing can be “very lonely and very slow.”

Be that as it may, there was little slowness in evidence on stage Sunday night, particularly in Salonen’s “Mania,” a sprightly piece for solo cello and small orchestra that received its United States premiere. From the outset, the work moves in a free-ranging perpetual motion, replete with anguished arpeggios and outbursts of lyricism against a dense orchestral backdrop. Cello soloist Anssi Karttunen, the childhood friend of Salonen’s for whom the piece was written, skillfully navigated the numerous challenges, not least of which was carving out expressive lines amid a rapid-fire barrage of notes.

The idea of speed and motion as a stylistic device in its own right was also present in the first movement of “Dichotomie,” a work for solo piano that was first performed in Los Angeles earlier this month. Here, pianist Gloria Cheng offered a robust reading that emphasized the shifting, bubbling textures present beneath a veil of homogeneity.

The piano work was preceded by the New York premiere of Salonen’s “Five Images After Sappho,” a charming setting of five fragments of text by the mysterious lyric poet. With contrasting tonal harmonies and vivid orchestration, the work captures the terse beauty of this poetry. Soprano Laura Claycomb sounded simply exquisite as she sang the laconic verses of a young woman’s coming of age.

The evening, which was introduced by Lutoslawski’s remarkable “Chain I” and the world premiere bbof Stucky’s spiky musical postcard “Ai due amici,” was received well by a keenly attuned crowd. The music professionals were out in force as well, with the New York Times’ chief critic, Anthony Tommasini, praising Salonen’s distinctive music and his “virtuosic writing for cello” in particular, though the critic also took issue with what he saw as an elusive compositional voice and a paucity of musical ideas in the one solo piano work. These were minor reservations, however, in a mostly positive review that ended with the sentiment, widely shared, that Salonen long continue his dual career as conductor and composer.

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Jeremy Eichler is a New York-based music critic.