Esa-Pekka Salonen With Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen: Violin Concerto, Nyx Leila Josefowicz, violinist; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Deutsche Grammophon 0289 479 0628 5; CD. ESA-PEKKA SALONEN stepped down as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009 to dedicate more time to composing. But he still conducts groups, including the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, in two of his own scores on this excellent disc, called "Out of Nowhere." Mr. Salonen's 17-year tenure in California broadened his compositional palette and allowed him to shun the precepts of European modernism, like de-emphasizing melody, that had guided his early career. "My focus moved from an ideological principle to a pleasure principle," he has said. Mr. Salonen's modernist roots are still discernible in his alluring Violin Concerto, along with a lively mix of influences, including those of John Adams, Ligeti, Lutoslawski and Debussy. Written in nine months of 2008 and 2009 in close collaboration with Leila Josefowicz, its dedicatee, Mr. Salonen's concerto is a portrait of both performer and composer. Frenetic and meditative by turns, the work is divided into four sections, beginning with "Mirage," in which the free-spirited violin line unfolds in fanciful, virtuosic and increasingly frenetic outbursts, here brilliantly played by Ms. Josefowicz. The frenzy subsides into the more delicately scored, gentle "Pulse 1," whose yearning violin solo contrasts with the colorful percussion and bright woodwind underpinnings of the exuberant "Pulse 2." The work concludes on a melancholy note with the questioning "Adieu." The disc also includes Mr. Salonen's sensual "Nyx," named after the Greek goddess of night. An alluring tapestry of hazy brass chorales, mysterious wind solos, shimmering textures and otherworldly waves of sound, the work ebbs and flows between languid and tempestuous moods, its subtleties vividly illuminated by the Finnish ensemble.