Review of Salonen's Complete Sony Recordings

The best way to review this big box of sixty-one CDs of largely orchestral music conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen might be just to make a brief comment on each disc. That will also tell you exactly what is in the box, something the Amazon page doesn't do. So here goes:

1. Bach Transcriptions These are by Leopold Stokowski, Edward Elgar, Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg and Gustav Mahler and are quite enjoyable.
2. Bela Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Excellent recordings with the LA Philharmonic.
3. Bela Bartók: The Three Piano Concertos The pianist is Yefim Bronfman and he does an excellent job as does the orchestra.
4. Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major "Romantic" The LA Philharmonic do a great job with this: rich, resonant and not rhythmically turgid--Salonen might have had something to do with that.
5. John Corigliano: The Red Violin The original film soundtrack plus the related chaconne. Joshua Bell, violin. Quite nice, but likely much better with the film.
6. Luigi Dallapiccola: Il prigioniero and Canti di prigionia Well done, of course, but I didn't find the composition very compelling.
7. Claude Debussy: Images pour orchestra, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, La Mer All wonderfully done, of course, with the LA Philharmonic.
8. Claude Debussy: Nocturnes, La Damoiselle élue, Le Martyre de saint Sébastien Dawn Upshaw does a fine job in La Damoiselle élue. For some reason I have never previously heard either that or Le Martyre.
9. Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt incidental music to the play by Henrik Ibsen This contains the well-known In the Hall of the Mountain King. Quite nice in its way.
10. Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 82 in C major "The Bear," Symphony No. 78 in C minor, Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major "The Philosopher" Three excellent Haydn symphonies excellently played by the Stockholm Chamber Orchestra. This tends to highlight that there is no Mozart, nor Beethoven in the collection. Overdone by others or he's just not interested?
11. Bernard Herrmann: The Film Scores Containing music from The Man Who Knew Too Much, Psycho, Marnie, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Torn Curtain, Fahrenheit 451 and Taxi Driver. Probably one of the best recordings of these classic soundtracks.
12. Eva Dahlgren: Jag will se min älskade komma från det vilda Eva Dahlgren is a well-known Swedish pop star and this recording, released in 1995, went to no. 2 on the Swedish charts.
13. Paul Hindemith: Sinfonische Metamorphosen, Thema mit 4 Variationen, Symphonie "Mathis de Maler" Well-played, certainly, but, with the exception of "Mathis de Maler" it just serves to remind me why I don't like Hindemith. Surprisingly dreary compositions, on the whole. But "Mathis der Maler" really is quite lovely and transcendent.
14. Lars-Erik Larsson: Förklädd Gud Tuneful and charming with a folkish air.
15. György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre, Scene I and II At first hearing it sounds like a 60s "happening", but further listening will likely reveal interesting aspects. Extreme vocal techniques, plus characters named Spermando, Clitoria and Mescalina. One wonders if Ligeti never quite recovered from the 60s.
16. Scene III and IV 
17. György Ligeti: Nonsense Madrigals, Mysteries of the Macabre, Aventures, Nouvelles Aventures, Der Sommer, Három Weöres-dal, Öt Arany-dal, Mégy lakodalmi tánc Interesting recreation of madrigal style in contemporary terms, plus settings of folk songs.
18. Magnus Lindberg: Cantigas, Cello Concerto, Parada, Fresco One way of describing Lindberg's music is to call it "complex chaos." Perhaps that's not entirely fair, but it is very busy and without too many obvious guideposts for the listener.
19. Arnold Schoenberg: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Franz Liszt: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in A major, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in E-flat major Schoenberg and Liszt is not a pairing we see too often, so let's give Salonen some points for creativity in putting these piano concertos together. One wonders: who is he trying to punish, Schoenberg fans or Liszt fans? Kidding, of course! The pianist is Emmanuel Ax who does a fine job. I have talked about Schoenberg's violin concerto recently, but I haven't heard the piano concerto for decades. I used to have a recording by, I think, Peter Serkin. After much negotiation with two different patrons, Schoenberg received the handsome commission of $1,000 for the work, completed in 1942. Something that has always puzzled me was why Liszt, the greatest piano virtuoso of his day, only completed two (and mostly, a third) piano concertos, and that after decades of revision? Mozart, for comparison, wrote twenty-three. Mind you, Liszt was astonishingly creative in a number of ways as a composer. Bartók, for example, commented that the Piano Concerto No. 1 was "the first perfect realisation of cyclic sonata form."

One of the fruits of Salonen's tenure in Los Angeles, apart from its effect on his composition, was his encounter with film music. Here is the overture to North by Northwest composed by Bernard Herrmann from disc 11. Blogger won't embed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L768_bgwM0I

Not on the Herrmann disc is this excerpt from the soundtrack to "On Dangerous Ground" also by Herrmann:

UPDATE: Sorry, forgot to mention that this is just part one! There are sixty-one discs in total, so this is a review of less than a third of them. I am planning two more posts.