
The Finnish conductor, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, presented a program that underscored the extremes of classical music.
By John Lavitt
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 02-04-2025
As the LA Phil Principal Guest Conductor, Susanna Mälkki brings an evident passion for Nordic music to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In a fascinating program of radically contrasting styles, she sandwiched the U.S. premiere of Hush by the modern Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) between traditional pieces by the Austrian Franz Schubert and the German Richard Strauss. This performance captured the imagination with extreme contrasts.
Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, “Unfinished,” the opening piece, is an 1822 composition that lacks its fourth and final movement and piano sketches. From the piece’s opening, Schubert expresses a voice marked by big themes and grand orchestral effects. Extremely German in feel and execution, the piece perfectly fits Mälkki’s conducting style, allowing her to be bold and controlled.
The closing piece was Richard Strauss’s epic Death and Transfiguration. Greatly influenced by Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Strauss applies those mythical themes to his time and place, rendering a transcendent crisis in a modern youth. Indeed, the composer’s identification with the heroic themes of Wagner’s music makes it feel like they are being applied to his life. Although epic and heavily wrought, the piece feels somewhat forced, lacking emotional veracity. Passionate about this music, Susanna Mälkki brought out the best in the LA Phil.
Sandwiched almost strangely between Schubert and Strauss, the United States premiere of Hush by the modern Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho was highlighted by Verneri Pohjola’s broken-into-sighs-and-screams trumpet playing. Discordant and jagged, it felt like a piece composed for a David Lynch film. Saariaho’s work at IRCAM, the Parisian center for electroacoustic experimentation, significantly influenced her music, and this experimental bent was apparent throughout the piece.
In a 2019 survey of her peers in BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was named the ‘Greatest Living Composer’. Her music reflects decomposition as traditional forms fall apart. Writing about the piece as she was dying from a brain tumor, Saariaho reveals the music’s inspiration: “This maddening rhythm was inspired by the monthly scans I underwent in MRI machines during my illness… The piece in its entirety is dedicated to the family I leave behind on my own journey to silence.”