Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra,
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Your support makes all the difference.Some people think that Sibelius, in composing the tone poem The Oceanides in 1914, had half an eye on Debussy's La Mer of nine years earlier. Both works, it is true, have a fin de siècle elegance, but Debussy's ocean is clearly inhabited by mythic creatures, tritons, nereids and sirens, while Sibelius's - in spite of the title - resembles the landscape without figures of the Second and Third Symphonies.
The Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen was just the man to see this contrast. His prodigiously accomplished Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra was well up to the elegance of the music; La Mer was played without exaggeration, the triton calls and siren songs never specially marked. Indeed, the sirens were obviously singing tunes by Massenet.
Sibelius's little-heard master work, however, came over as one long paragraph, its touches of instrumental detail soon submerged in the massive undertow. There was a hugeness of string tone, underpinned by magnificent double basses, that merged into the looming presence of a fine timpanist.
There was elegance, too, in Stravinsky's complete score for the ballet Petrushka, but here they went chiefly for brilliance and colour. Salonen avoids giving cues for instrumental entries, and the result is a performance that runs on wheels, all immensely soigné.
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