Salonen brings Bryce Dessner's Violin Concerto to the LA Philharmonic

Esa-Pekka Salonen concludes his tenure as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony next month. Last weekend found him not in Northern California but down south, where he visited his former outfit, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He brought along a treasure that he commissioned for San Francisco: a Violin Concerto written by rock guitarist turned prolific composer Bryce Dessner. With his Finnish countryman (and the work’s dedicatee) Pekka Kuusisto on hand to play the challenging solo part, this stirring piece of new music made for a welcome contemporary centerpiece sandwiched between two perennial crowd pleasers.

Dessner took inspiration for his first Violin Concerto from Anne Carson’s The Anthropology of Water, an essay that considers the rite of pilgrimage throughout history and mythology. The idea of ceaseless, peripatetic journey manifested itself in Kuusisto’s relentless solo duties: from the moment Salonen gave the downbeat, he never rested his bow, traveling across octaves and hurtling from a whisper to a scream. For 25 unbroken minutes – the work’s three movements unfold without pause – he seemed to be a character braving the elements, facing uncertainty and ultimately reaching his hard-won destination. The orchestra manifested the challenges the pilgrim needed to endure, from staccato timpani strokes and an onslaught of zesty percussion to woodwind trills that called to mind birdsong, both friendly and menacing. Throughout, Salonen kept up a sense of perpetual motion, drawing refined detail where others might simply produce cacophonous noise.

After so much excitement, Kuusisto returned to the stage for a simple encore: a Swedish folk melody, Vi sålde våra hemman, which he explained was brought to America by Scandinavian migrants in the 19th century. Halfway through his lilting performance, he supplemented the violin line with his own whistle.

The program began with Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, a languid performance unfolding from Denis Bouriakov’s luscious flute solo. Salonen occasionally overindulged in rests, but his overall reading produced the appropriate tranquil effect. After intermission came Beethoven’s Symphony no. 3 in E flat major, a full-throated interpretation replete with energy and mischief. The perpetual motion of the Allegro con brio earned a smattering of spontaneous applause – forgivable when the playing is this precise – but it was the heaving sighs of the second-movement funeral march that put a lump in this listener’s throat. Salonen led a spritely Scherzo before launching a Finale so lively it made you wish the composer had written even more false endings. 

Salonen receives justified praise for his skill at shepherding contemporary works, including his own, but this Eroica showed that he still has a strong hand on the classics too.