Out West Arts liked Salonen's Sibelius but not the premiere of Steven Stucky's Radical Light:
The work seems composed of nearly every orchestral cliché of “shimmering” and light-evoking sounds you can imagine from chimes on down to some of the standard John Adams’ tricks of the trade.
Mark Swed was more positive:
Stucky's piece is a study in wondrous sonorities: thick string clouds, incandescent brass, chattering and glittering winds.
The composer is interviewed in an article by Tom Jacobs celebrating the 20th anniversary of his association with the LA Philharmonic :
He describes "Radical Light" as "a single-movement work with many different characters and sections and tempi that nevertheless tries to make one continuous motion for about 17 minutes.
All of which makes me curious about it.
