Dedicated to Yo-Yo Ma, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s concerto for cello and orchestra was commissioned by a gilt-edged consortium including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, London’s Barbican Centre, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; it premiered in Chicago in March 2017. Written in the traditional three-movement concerto format, the piece runs an expansive 40 minutes—a good 10 minutes longer than the Elgar, which has been called a “brooding sea monster.” Pushing the envelope in an astonishing final gesture, Salonen sent Ma skyward to a high B flat on the A string. What does the music “mean”? Salonen has mentioned that the material incorporates ideas developed over three decades. He wanted, he says, to let simplicity emerge from complexity, “like consciousness from a cloud of dust,” and floated cosmic metaphor as well. Salonen’s soloist this time out is his Finnish compatriot Senja Rummukainen in her Cleveland debut. The program also includes Ravel’s pristine faux antique Le Tombeau de Couperin, based on court dances of the Renaissance, and the triumphalist Symphony No. 5 of Finland’s towering Jean Sibelius. —Matthew Gurewitsch