FMQ 3/1986

Although still only 28, Esa-Pekka Salonen probably needs little introduction for anyone with even a moderate interest in classical music, since he has already gained what is known in the jargon of concert programmes as “an international reputation” for his conducting work. In this article, however, we take a look at the still small, but not insignificant output of Salonen the composer. When Esa-Pekka Salonen looks in the mirror, does he see a conductor or a composer looking back at him?

Magnus Lindberg, 28, is among the most internationally successful of young Finnish composers. This year his orchestral work KRAFT took 1st prize in the Unesco International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. Magnus Lindberg's composing muse combines two farces: on the one hand there is a need far the rational arrangement of things, the theoretician at work, and on the other we have the irrational free imagination of the musician. Fused together they generate some of the most poweiful music heard on these shores far quite a while.