Fog (Orchestra version) (2021)

Salonen’s glinting manipulation of Bach’s phrases into swathes of repetitive motion, now fast, now stretched slow, sounded vibrant.

...this is the composer having fun with Bach: he starts with a crystalline opening which might be the snow of a Nordic winter, or indeed the shimmering sun from the metal shell of Walt Disney Hall, of which Gehry was the architect, and then takes the theme in all manner of whimsical directions.

We heard the premiere of a fuller orchestral version, in the familiar kaleidoscope which has always been a trademark of Salonen the composer, but has grown ever richer through his association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. You might have detected chords and colours from the big John Adams orchestral scores, but the beauty of it was that despite the expansion, there were no trumpets or trombones even though you thought you heard them. As I could have sworn I did in what sounded like lower-brass cushioning at some especially rich points, but it was an aural illusion. 

Initially composed for ensemble for Frank O. Gehry’s (title derived from initials) ninetieth birthday, and now expanded for orchestra, [Fog] recalls the first music ever heard in Disney Hall. It was a moment Salonen had wanted to ‘embellish upon’. And how — in a fantastical recreation, slightly sinister and unquestionably magical, poised between mechanism and the spontaneously woven. Were those ghosts in the machine, or machines in the ghosts? The general answer seemed to be: why choose? Bach rarely did.