Conductor Susanna Mälkki had an arresting concept for a Los Angeles Philharmonic program featuring the U.S. premiere of her Finnish compatriot Kaija Saariaho’s final work — a trumpet concerto called HUSH. Knowing the piece’s subject, Mälkki bookended it with two other compositions about death and the beyond — Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) and, of course, Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration.
But Mälkki couldn’t have known how resonant this concept would be in the wake of the catastrophic fires that roared through Los Angeles County in January. Some members of the LA Phil, and possibly some folks in the audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday, Feb. 2, had lost their homes and possessions in the blazes. Adding to the Sturm und Drang in the air, a massive demonstration protesting the Trump administration’s deportation policies poured onto the downtown U.S. 101 Freeway that same afternoon, shutting it down.
I wonder how such an atmosphere affects our perception of a performance. From a first hearing, indeed from the eerie, deathly drone that opens HUSH, it’s clear that Saariaho was struggling under the weight of her fight against glioblastoma, the ravaging brain tumor that took her life shortly after she completed the concerto in 2023. She wrote it for the unusual capabilities of Finnish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, an adept purveyor of extended techniques as well as an acclaimed jazz artist in Europe.
In the struggle to survive that pervades this piece, the signature dreamscapes of Saariaho’s mature works have turned corroded and raw. (About the score, she wrote that she had to dictate the notes to two of her colleagues because her illness had impaired her motor skills.) Each of the four short movements of this 21-minute work are dedicated to someone: Pohjola, Saariaho’s husband Jean-Baptiste Barrière, and significantly, the composer’s two doctors. Even the mechanical rhythm that runs through the third movement — harsh sounds from the soloist competing with horror-show percussion salvos and ominously muted French horns — was said to be inspired by the rhythms of an MRI machine.
Despite the light bell sounds of glockenspiel and celesta in the finale, the downcast mood hardly lifts, and in the end, the piece comes to a pensive conclusion — perhaps the destination on what Saariaho called “my own journey into silence.” One is reminded of Dmitri Shostakovich’s death-haunted final works, where nothing else seemed to be on his mind.
At Disney Hall, Pohjola’s trumpet exuded breathy trills, fluttering multiphonics, gritty growls, and in the middle movements, animal-like cries of pain. His wail at the end of the third movement sounded like that of a wounded elephant, which produced some giggles in the audience that I doubt were intended by the composer. At times, Pohjola seemed to be making speechlike music through his horn; he even sang a few wordless tones in the finale. It was a tour de force for the trumpeter.
Strauss’s symphonic poem Death and Transfiguration broods over the past, rages against the darkness, and rises to a peak of major-key splendor in the afterlife — which made for a big contrast with Saariaho’s work. Mälkki, who during her tenure as the LA Phil’s principal guest conductor proved her prowess with mighty Strauss pieces like An Alpine Symphony, did it again on Sunday, leading a splendid performance. The lyrical sections of the score had sweep and grace, the Allegro molto agitato came on with a thunderclap, and she perfectly timed the rise to the final exultant climax.
Some conductors soft-pedal the emotions in Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 — which the composer apparently meant to finish yet never did for unknown reasons — but Mälkki would have none of that. She poured on the vehemence in the middle of the first movement at a fast pace and heightened the swells and accents in an otherwise objective rendition of the wonderfully eloquent second movement. Someday, someone should offer a performance at Disney Hall of Schubert’s sketches for the unfinished scherzo, but this wouldn’t have been the time for it. The second movement’s peaceful ending was enough.
