Foreign Bodies is an composition in three movements by the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. The work was commissioned by the Yle and was first performed at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival on August 12, 2001 by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste.[Salonen, Esa-Pekka (2001). Foreign Bodies: Program Note . Retrieved August 9, 2015.]
Composition
Foreign Bodies has a duration of roughly 20 minutes and is composed in three movements:
-
Body Language
-
Language
-
Dance
Instrumentation
The work is scored for an orchestra comprising two
(doubling flute and
alto flute), two flutes (doubling
bass flute), three
,
cor anglais, three
(doubling
E-flat clarinet),
bass clarinet, three
,
contrabassoon, six
French horn, three
, three
,
tuba,
timpani, four percussionists, two
Pedal harp, one keyboardist (on
piano and
celesta; optional organ), optional 5-string
bass guitar and
String section.
The first percussionist plays a 5-octave marimba, maracas, 4 Wooden fish, 2 wood blocks, and a mark tree. The second plays vibraphone, guiro, and 4 Tom-tom drum The third plays 3 Gong, 6 Slit drum, a small gong, a Crotales in Eb, tubular bells, and 10 large tuned Thai Gong The fourth plays bass drum, glockenspiel, claves, hi-hat, and a sizzle cymbal.
Reception
Alex Ross of
The New Yorker described the composition as "music of muscular, extroverted energy."
Stephen Johnson of
BBC Music Magazine similarly lauded it as "strongly argued, bursting with energy and full of the kind of ravishing sound-vistas that makes one want to go back and indulge again and again."
of the
Los Angeles Times praised
Foreign Bodies for its "vivid application of orchestral color and the inner clockwork structure" and wrote:
Arnold Whittall of Gramophone was more critical of the work, however, writing:
