[Nick Zwar]

I never got around to checking out his own music. I know I can google around, but before I do – how would you describe his music?

Esa‑Pekka Salonen’s music… what’s it like? Hmmm…. Maybe a mix of Debussy, Stravinsky, and a dash of Ligeti… Imagine those mixed up and served with crystal clear crushed ice-cubes (Salonen is Nordic, after all). There is a certain “filmic” quality to his music. Even when the orchestration is dense, the lines remain transparent. He treats the orchestra like a precision instrument, every sound matters, I guess the fact that he is both an excellent conductor and a studied composer enables him to write music that seems to be both highly complex and yet utterly clear and self evident. Hard to describe, at least for me. His “L.A. Variations” was the first piece of his I ever heard, and yep, for some reason, that reminds me of L.A. on a rainy day. It’s rhythmically propulsive (the percussion towards the end is just great) and composed by someone who exactly knows how to make every orchestral note count.