Too Big To Fail

Can a piece of music be too big to fail? The latest work by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Finnish composer and conductor who is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, has a startling number of what politicians like to call “stakeholders”: The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice (which gave the premiere on January 13), the Berlin Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg have all shelled out for Salonen’s new “Sinfonia concertante for organ and orchestra.” Besides these six orchestras, Salonen is working with two of the best organists in the world on his piece, Iveta Apkalna and Olivier Latry. According to a press release, the Katowice premiere inaugurated the “largest new concert instrument in Europe.” Meanwhile, the Elbphilharmonie is presenting the (cringe-inducingly named) “Multiverse Esa-Pekka Salonen,” a series of concerts between September 2022 and May 2023 culminating with another performance of the “Sinfonia concertante.”