Salonen's 'Pollux' supplies some grunge for L.A. Phil tour

“There is something intriguing,” Esa-Pekka Salonen writes in the notes for his solemnly captivating new orchestral piece, “Pollux,” “about [a] famed beauty having a penchant for large water birds.”

There is also something intriguing about this translucently liquid 12-minute score that Salonen wrote...