Helsinki Philharmonic/Salonen

Royal Albert Hall, London

Tim Ashley
Monday September 12, 2005
The Guardian

From the Wreckage is Mark-Anthony Turnage's new trumpet concerto, written for the Swedish virtuoso Hakan Hardenberger, who gave the UK premiere on Friday with the Helsinki Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen. The title refers not to a nautical disaster but to the fact that the work was begun "at a particularly dark time in Turnage's life". The concerto depicts a psychological journey from sorrow to calm via barely repressed anger and rage, its emotional trajectory delineated by the fact that Hardenberger opens the work playing a dark-sounding flugelhorn, which he changes first for a standard trumpet during the agitated central section, then for an ethereal-sounding piccolo trumpet in the closing pages. The outer sections are blues inflected, tender and appealing. In between come rhythmic and harmonic dislocation as the music seethes towards climaxes that collapse into exhaustion. Ticking, clock-like percussion goads Hardenberger on his way, measuring his progress. At the end, even after order has seemingly been restored, the ticking resumes, hinting perhaps that Turnage's "dark time" is not quite over.

Salonen grouped this with three works written in the early years of the 20th century. The brass took a while to settle in the first movement of La mer, though thereafter every detail of Debussy's great seascape was perfectly and beautifully realised. The two suites from Ravel's Daphnis and Chloë glowed with a fiery sensuality. The third work was Luonnotar, Sibelius's weird depiction of Finnish creation myths. The soprano soloist, accurate if occasionally tentative, was Solveig Kringelborn. Salonen's conducting was little short of astonishing as the rustling orchestral sound created a sense of uncanny mysteries.