Party Time: Salonen, LA Phil, and Stravinsky’s Rite.
By TIMOTHY MANGAN, Musical America, April 17, 2019
Los Angeles audiences know what to expect when they show up to hear Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct The Rite of Spring with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. They expect a wild good time, an orchestral spectacle, a whomping cataclysm of sound. Salonen takes Stravinsky’s masterpiece as seriously as anyone, discovers more in its teeming textures and rhythms than you can imagine, but he never forgets that the piece is the work of a composer in his 20s feeling his oats and showing off. In Salonen and the LA Phil’s hands, The Rite of Spring is a party piece.
Disney Concert Hall was packed for it Saturday night (April 13), as Salonen returned to begin a three-week residency here. He’s starting it with a not so mini festival called “Salonen’s Stravinsky.” Each of the three programs (each performed twice) has a subtitle. One is subtitled “Faith” (and features sacred works, mostly late) and another “Myths” (a diptych of Orpheus and Persephone). Saturday’s opening program was dubbed “Rituals” and included early and late works, capped by The Rite of Spring.
Stravinsky lived in Los Angeles, some ten miles distance from downtown, longer than in any other place in his life, including his native Russia. He created many of his great works here, including those of his Indian summer, when he embraced serialism in his own inimitable way. Did Los Angeles directly influence his music? Schoenberg lived here concurrently, and then, as now, the city was a thriving center for new music. You’d have to conclude yes.
