Favourite albums of 2012

Now that it is January 2013 a post about my favourite music of 2012 is probably appropriate. In a couple days I'll write about my favourite concerts, but for now I want to highlight two CDs that were released in 2012 that were definitely the highlight of my musical year. Both involved Esa-Pekka Salonen; one CD is his "Out of Nowhere" with the Violin Concerto and Nyx, and the other is his premiere recording of Shostakovich's Orango as well as Symphony No.4.

I wrote about Salonen's Violin Concerto here, and I hope you've all listened to and loved the piece. The CD recording is actually spot on as well, never too clean and it's just very dynamic. Leila Josefowicz is a star in her own right and of course her playing is stunning. In that earlier post I lamented about Nyx not being on youtube, but now it is! It's fast growing to be my favourite Salonen piece, so listen and enjoy:



The Shostakovich CD by Salonen is something else altogether. Orango is an unfinished opera by Shostakovich of which 30 minutes survives(he and the librettists decided it wasn't a good idea to continue with in their current political climate). Some of the music will be very familiar to Shostakovich-lovers, however, as he re-used quite a bit of it for his ballet The Bolt (and rightly so, it's fantastic music). However, there's still lots that was never played or released before and it's such an honour to be around for its rediscovery.

In 2004 Olga Digonskaya, a Russian musicologist, found the piano score of Orango in a museum in Moscow. Because of her research we now know that it was commisioned by the Bolshoi Theatre in 1932, and that Alexei Tolstoy and Alexander Starchakov were to write the libretto. Tolstoy and Shostakovich together decided to make it "an uproariously irreverent squib, a satirical farce taking potshots at all kinds of aspects of contemporary culture" (CD liner notes by Gerard McBurney). The story tells of some sort of weird experiment of breeding a cross between men and apes to produce a hybrid (named Orango). This hybrid then becomes a successful soldier, a wheeler-dealer and a press-baron (quite a career!). Only the prologue survives both in word and music, as all involved decided to abandon the project. It's raucous piece, with probably the loudest percussion I've ever heard (and that includes Varèse), it's full of irony and humour but there's darkness in the music as well. All in all, it's an absolutely amazing work and it's sad that there are only 30 minutes left, though that's certainly better than nothing. There's nothing on youtube with the music, but here's Esa-Pekka talking about Orango:



Salonen and the LA Philharmonic's recording of Shostakovich Symphony No.4 has very much reaffirmed my belief that Salonen understands Shostakovich. Or perhaps I should say, he understands Shostakovich in the same way I understand him. The performance is absolutely and entirely spot on. There's not one thing I can say that I'd like to see differently (and this is usually the case with Shostakovich recordings, especially the Fourth of which I have too many so there's usually something I disagree with). Even though I will probably forever be loyal to Rostropovich and especially Kondrashin's recordings, Salonen comes really really close to my favourites. The recording is crystal clear but still has enough depth (which you definitely need in the Fourth). So if you're in the mood to buy some music; get these albums!

Esa-Pekka Salonen - Violin Concerto.

Do you all know that I love Esa-Pekka Salonen? Because I love Esa-Pekka Salonen (his name is great too). He's my favourite contemporary composer by far (sorry Adès) and also one of my favourite conductors. His music is absolutely phenomenal and I think it's a crime his pieces aren't performed more often. Thankfully there are some good recordings, and earlier this year his Grawmeyer-awardwinning Violin Concerto was released.

A couple of weeks ago I finally purchased the CD and I love the piece SO much. Also on the CD is a recording Nyx, another amazing orchestral piece. But seeing as I can't find that one on youtube (you should seriously find it on spotify or something though, it's up there with Foreign Bodies and Gambit as far as I'm concerned), here's the Violin Concerto, with Esa-Pekka conducting, Leila Josefowicz playing the solo part (the concerto was written for her) and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France doing everything else (they have an awesome drummer):


Movements 1 'Mirage', 2 'Pulse I' and 3 Pulse II.


Movement 4 'Adieu'.



Other YPGTCM posts on Esa-Pekka Salonen: Foreign Bodies once, and Foreign Bodies again.

Esa-Pekka Salonen - Foreign Bodies (post #2)

Look at what I just found on youtube!



It's Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting his own orchestral suite Foreign Bodies!! I wrote about in this post and it's one of my absolute favourite pieces of music ever. Obviously you should watch this video (even though the volume's a bit low).

Esa-Pekka Salonen - Foreign Bodies

One of the things I love about classical music is that it's constantly evolving and there's always exciting new things happening. Right now there's a lot of talk about Mark-Antony Turnage's new opera Anna Nicole, last summer was the premiere of the amazing opera A Dog's Heart by Alexander Raskatov, and there are lots of exciting composers like Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher, James MacMillan, Michel van der Aa, Thomas Adès, Sofia Gubaidulina, John Adams, Louis Andriessen etc etc. My favourite contemporary composer, however, is Esa-Pekka Salonen (he's also one of my favourite conductors). He's written lots of amazing works; Piano and Violin Concertos, Helix, Insomnia, Wing on Wing, LA Variations etc. My favourite is Foreign Bodies which is an incredibly exciting work (if you only want to listen to one part, which would be foolish by the way, I suggest III):

Foreign Bodies: I Body Language


Foreign Bodies: II Language


Foreign Bodies: III Dance

Esa-Pekka Salonen (1958-) is a Finnish composer and also a rather well-known conductor. As a conductor he's a champion of contemporary music, and has conducted quite a few premieres like Arvo Pärt's Symphony No.4, Louis Andriessen's Haags Hakkûh, Mark-Antony Turnage's From the Wreckage and a whole bunch of works by Marcus Lindberg and of course himself. As a composer his main influence seems to be (to my ears anyway) Igor Stravinsky, they have a similar rhythmic drive and spastic melodies. He says this about music: ""Musical expression is bodily expression, there is no abstract cerebral expression in my opinion. It all comes out of the body." Apparently he is planning to write an opera which would surely be the greatest thing ever.

This is what he has to say about Foreign Bodies:

"“Foreign Bodies” is scored for a very large orchestra; in fact the largest I have ever used with quadruple woodwinds, six horns, two harps, four percussionists and organ. For fairly obvious reasons, my thinking tends to be orchestral even when writing music for another medium, which makes it very natural to expand ideas in an orchestral context. I’m endlessly fascinated by the complexities of texture, balance, timbre and instrumental gesture; therefore the category “Kapellmeistermusik” has no pejorative meaning to me.

As the title “Foreign Bodies” suggests (it actually suggests lots of things), the music is very physical in expression, almost like an imaginary scène de ballet. The title also refers to the fact that I am less concerned about the purely cerebral aspects of music and more interested in the physical reality of the music, i.e. the sound itself, than before. Also, more than two decades of conducting have helped me to think in a simpler, more direct way than before."

If you enjoy this piece I suggest listening to Gambit, Mania and Insomnia. Unfortunately it's not easy to find any music by Salonen on the internet (*some* record label owns him and doesn't like his music being on youtube) buuut there is a video here of Salonen conducting three of his own works: Helix, the Violin Concerto (which is amazing, it even has a drumkit! My favourite bit is from 28 minutes onwards when for some reason he starts laughing) and Wing on Wing (this piece was somewhat of a grower for me, but I love it now!).