Above: soloist Anthony McGill and composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen performing Salonen's “Kínēma” with the NY Philharmonic; photo by Chris Lee
Author: Ben Weaver
Friday February 10th, 2023 - The New York Philharmonic in a Friday matinee concert; Esa-Pekka Salonen made a welcome return to the orchestra, both as conductor and composer. Looking a bit unkempt and cranky, his introduction of his 2021 composition kínēma for Solo Clarinet and String Orchestra (receiving its US Premiere at these performances) was full of charm, humor, and self-deprecation.
Salonen composed kínēma in 2021 on commission by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He used music he left unused for a film score (hence the title, derived from the ancient Greek word that gives us “cinema.”) Consisting of 5 movements - or scenes - it is a highly lyrical composition and it gives the Philharmonic’s magnificent principal clarinetist, Anthony McGill, many opportunities to exhibit his supreme talents. Salonen discussed in his pre-performance talk how much he admires the clarinet as an instrument because of its huge range of sound and colors. He definitely exploits all the ranges through the work, and McGill conquered every obstacle with ease.
kínēma's first scene, Dawn, depicts a languid and quiet sunrise. Since film is inspiration here I immediately saw the opening frames of Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso,” with the gently flowing curtain in the window. Of course that had Ennio Morricone’s immortal score, but the image immediately rose in my mind as Salonen’s kínēma - with its gentle strings and clarinet - began. Salonen points out that there is no traditional musical development in any of the movements; he thinks of them as just “spaces” where one can simply exist briefly and then leave. The third scene, Pérotin’s Dream, has a jazzy, fun bounce, with McGill - who strikes a dashing physical presence on the stage - dancing along with the music, even as he scales every imaginable register of the clarinet. J.D. In Memoriam, an elegy Salonen dedicated to a friend, is deeply moving, yet unsentimental. A gentle and lovely “duet” between McGill and principal violist Cynthia Phelps was mesmerizing. The closing Return was an rollicking, dazzling good time. For the work’s final phrase Salonen quotes the first movement; he points out in an interview that this is a very Brucknerian technique. Once again, what else can one say about the great musician Anthony McGill is. The technical challenges - and here there are many - are hardly even worth mentioning because he conquers them without breaking a sweat. It’s his musicality, heart-felt embrace of the music and its ever-shifting moods, while easily clearing every hurdle, that the audience appreciates the most.
kínēma was actually the second work on the program, which opened with Luciano Berio’s lively transcription of Luigi Boccherini’s Ritirata from the famous 1870 String Quintet. Boccherini’s original Quintet is a shockingly “modern” work, so one can easily see why it appealed to someone as musically caustic as Berio. (Although Berio made quite a few transcriptions of music of Bach, Schubert, etc.) The Quintet’s popularity in its own day led Boccherini to make a number of transcriptions for other instruments, and it’s these that Berio took and superimposed over one another in 1975 to create Four Original Versions of Ritirata notturna di Madrid (Nocturnal Retreat from Madrid) by L. Boccherini, Superimposed and Transcribed for Orchestra. Depicting a marching band making its way through the streets of Madrid to announce a curfew, the work marvelously depicts the band first heard in the distance, then slowly rising in volume as it approaches your window, and then once again retreating into silence as they turn the corner and continue to make their way to the next neighborhood. The work’s memorable, bouncy tune - one of the most famous melodies in Western art music - works its way through the orchestra; the players seemed to love every minute of it, as did the audience.
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 - composed in 1811-12 - is one of his most joyous works. At its premiere, the nearly deaf Beethoven’s conducting seems to have been highly irregular and wild, but his antics were not distracting enough that the music did not make an enormous impression upon the audience, which demanded the second movement be encored. A work Wagner famously called the “apotheosis of dance,” it does not contain a single traditional dance, and yet it the whole thing is a ballet as thrilling and surprising as anything Beethoven ever composed. It opens with a grand, stately introduction, as if you were entering a ballroom. Soon everyone is swirling at a breakneck pace. The famous second movement, Allegretto, has always been a bit of Schrödinger’s movement, equally tragic and romantic. In popular culture it’s been used for funerals and love-making. Maestro Salonen did not dwell on the darkness; sounds like he comes on the side of a dance. The Presto is back to the unmistakable territory of giddiness and the final movement has always seemed to be a contest between conductors and orchestras: who can play this fastest? The dizzying final moments of the work are really just different levels of exhilaration. I wait for the day an orchestra plays it so fast that we all get lifted off our seats. Curiously Maestro Salonen and the Philharmonic did not attempt to launch us into space, the pace was slightly slower than rocket ship, but it was exhilarating nonetheless. It always is.
~ Ben Weaver