Well, the Baron had the good fortune to catch Salonen’s final performance with the Philharmonic yesterday, and while I don’t have much to add beyond what’s already been (far more eloquently) written by others, the program itself, with its themes of death, resurrection and redemption, gave me pause to reflect on the man’s career in LA. It’s been one amazing ride, and I certainly consider myself fortunate to have been around to have grown up (and old) with it. Those last ecstatic Laudates from yesterday’s breathtaking performance of Symphony of Psalms will certainly resonate long in memory.
In retrospect he leaves behind a Promethean legacy: Salonen came to Los Angeles in 1992 as a fresh face inheriting a franchise long in atrophy, and leaves as a cultural force virtually unrivaled in this city over the past two decades, and who leaves behind an ensemble that, for the depth and breadth of its repertoire and the passion of its playing, is arguably the world's finest symphony orchestra. As much as anyone else in the city, he was responsible for willing into being our world-class concert hall with the Mickey Mouse name. He dragged our local orchestra not only across the street into a futuristic building but into the messy postwar world of compositional music, conducting (and commissioning) dozens of examples of postmodern works typically mislabeled “avant-garde” or “atonal”---some grating and trivial, but most of them memorable---that the Philharmonic had become legendarily famous for avoiding. In doing so he helped to popularize New Music in general, such that our Green Umbrella concerts, once the province of a couple hundred adventurous souls at the Japan America Theatre, are now routine sell-outs at Disney Hall.
And most amazing of all, he made classical music not only hip and relevant to a new generation of concertgoers, but a desirable and even essential component of the entire L.A. cultural experience---something I frankly would not have thought possible in a town where pop music, blockbuster filmmaking and dispose-a-matic TV programming have reigned supreme for decades. He did it all without Mehta-esque showboating or pandering to the masses; he treated the orchestra, and us loyal listeners, as intelligent and inquisitive adults. And by challenging the orchestra---and those of us in the audience---to accustom ourselves to the sometimes jarring juxtaposition of familiar old crowd-pleasers and brand-new works---to connect the dots between Liszt and Lutoslawski---he reminded us that what we vaguely call “classical” music is not some 19th-century museum piece gathering varnish, but is, like painting and sculpture, a continuously evolving art form: A living, breathing organism which may morph and modulate in context and meaning over the passing of centuries, but which still has as many secrets to reveal about our culture, and our inner lives, as it did in Beethoven’s time. Have we really had it so good the past 17 years? Yep, and let's long hold onto and cherish dear the memories.
Update: KUSC-FM, our last radio bastion of the classical canon in LA, broadcast yesterday's concert live, and will re-broadcast it later this summer. you can click here to find out more.
---Vitelius
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