Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was wrapping up his latest visit to Los Angeles, and the Colburn Orchestra drew the crowds to Royce Hall last Saturday. Standing at the head of the program were two emerging young musicians, both of them Salonen Conducting Fellows. Comparatively unknown for now, their talents have them poised to achieve wider recognition of their own.
Melaniuk conducting the Colburn Orchestra [Image:Brian Feinzimer]
The Polish-born Aleksandra Melaniuk took the stage first in a sweeping performance of Liszt’s Les Préludes, a former repertoire warhorse whose reek of mothballs most modern-day performances have difficulty in dispelling. Not here.
Melaniuk dug into the introduction, drawing rich tone from the Colburn cellos and basses. Against this background emerged the famous fanfare, cresting above the orchestra incisively played. Throughout the performance Melaniuk displayed an impressive sense of blend, as well as a knack for convincingly supple phrasing. She steered the orchestra through carefully gauged rubati in transitions, not to mention stunningly dispatched hairpin dynamics. Altogether a bold, knockabout performance — major orchestras take note.
Yalniz conducting the Colburn Orchestra [Image:Brian Feinzimer]
Her German-Turkish colleague, Mert Yalniz, displayed his own multifaceted abilities with his impressive conducting of his own Limit: A rollicking piece that thrives on swift changes of moods and textures, riding climax after climax, all of it sumptuously scored. Yalniz certainly knows how to push his orchestra to the limits.
It’s also a fascinating example of Gen-Z new music. Yalniz’s predecessors don’t seem to be Schoenberg or Stravinsky, but various composers of music for films, trailers, and video games. Even the later RCA discography of Esquivel seemed to hover over the clashing ethnic colors in Limit.
More familiar territory, in the guise of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, awaited the audience after the interval, but Salonen kept the music fresh. Attacks were crisp, textures lucid; tempi, never pressed unduly, nonetheless moved along.
The Colburn Orchestra responded readily to Salonen’s treatment, piling onto climaxes with enthusiasm. They also knew when to turn up the finesse, especially in those broad passages wherein Bruckner transports his listeners into his enigmatic personal meditations. His famous luftpausen, too, were taken in unified breaths by orchestra and conductor, conveying the music latent within those silences.
Long an idiosyncratic interpreter of Romantic-era music, Salonen’s performance was more Laurel Canyon good vibes than Sunday service introspection. Adroitly realized by the Colburn Orchestra, Royce Hall resounded with a Bruckner Fourth for our time.