More often than not‚ Esa­Pekka Salonen is dubbed ‘the conductor who composes’ – the implication being that none of his compositions have so far equalled the best achievements of his Finnish contemporaries‚ like Kaija Saariaho’s Graal Théâtre or Magnus Lindberg’s Aura. Yet Salonen’s recent orchestral score Foreign Bodies (heard at the 2001 Proms) shows a distinctive musical personality at work: if he were to give more time to writing and less to conducting‚ he could yet acquire a higher compositional profile. Whether many of the early works on this CD will contribute much to that profile must be doubted. The programme traces Salonen’s development from a 20­year old student (the rather bland and anonymous Nachtlieder) and on through a series of works involving much use of rapidly articulated‚ ostinato­like note groups. There is some affinity here with Lutos¹awski‚ and the music works best when its routines open out into areas of expression – now playful‚ now more lyrical – which give the manic energy which predominates some much­needed perspective. While the best thing about the rather disjointed and static Saxophone Concerto is its unexpectedly nonchalant ending‚ the group of pieces called Yta (Swedish for ‘surface’) relish the instability of lines which risk aimlessness in their concentration on immediate effect. There is nevertheless some brilliant playing here – especially by cellist Anssi Karttunen and harpischordist Jukka Tiensuu. The apotheosis of this manic phase in Salonen’s work comes with Floof‚ which uses surreal texts by Stanislav Lem as the basis for a romp whose mechanisms run explosively but never too threateningly out of control. But it’s the most recent work‚ Mimo II for oboe and orchestra‚ which is the most rewarding‚ more varied in mood and with stronger contrasts of material and texture than its predecessors. It receives an appropriately spacious recording‚ whereas some of the other items sound rather constricted‚ with moments of questionable balance (the treatment of the voice in Floof‚ in particular).