Aulis Sallinen at 90

This month marks the ninetieth birthday of Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen, one of the most distinctive yet approachable voices among contemporary composers from the Baltic countries. Sallinen has enjoyed immense success on the stage, with key works rooted in his country’s national heritage. This is flanked by a strong orchestral output, including eight symphonies, and a wide range of chamber music. Interviews with Sallinen are scarce, yet Presto has been fortunate to talk with him for an appraisal of his life’s work as he reaches this significant personal milestone.

We begin with his early recollections of classical music. “I started to study violin when I was about nine years old. Since there was a piano in the corner of the living room, I also started to improvise, to search for its possibilities. This was a quiet and normal childish activity, but later on I wrote down what I found – let us say they were the first compositions. Of course there were also many sorts of orchestral and chamber music activities.”

While he composed, Sallinen played violin and piano – alongside which he also sought employment. “My work as a primary school teacher lasted only three years, but a great number followed in different administrative jobs, with ten years as the manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. I was thirty-five when the different economical supports were sufficient enough to devote all my time to composition, including a lifetime professorship of arts from the Finnish government.”

He studied with fellow composers Joonas Kokkonnen and Aarre Merikanto, but did not meet Sibelius. “He died in the same year as I started my studies at the Sibelius-Academy. Much has been spoken of the influence of Sibelius, but I would rather speak of the northern character of music, in comparison with Mediterranean music, for instance.”

Jazz also played a significant part. “We had in our school town many sorts of combos playing evergreens, so-called dance music in general. I used to play the piano, but also violin and accordion. Along the way I gathered a twelve-piece big band, for which I wrote the arrangements. This experience with the so-called light music has certainly left some traces in my writing, for instance several tango elements in some compositions, and then the style of ‘Blind Singer’ in my opera Kullervo. In general I have kept these two musical genres separated, independent.”

Sallinen gained great exposure from the recording of his String Quartet No. 3, subtitled ‘Some Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik's Funeral March’, included in a collection by the Kronos Quartet including the music of Glass, Sculthorpe, Nancarrow and Jimi Hendrix. “The third string quartet led them to play other pieces”, he recalls, “with the fifth quartet premiered by them at the Kuhmo Music Festival. The third quartet began in 1970, when the Swedish organisation Rikskonserter invited me to introduce music at the country's gymnasiums. I wrote the string quartet to explain at the schools the variation form and technique in music. Okko Kamu (who was known as an outstanding violinist) played first violin, and I played second. We presented the quartet at Swedish schools around thirty times, and since then Okko and I have been very close friends. He has premiered a great number of my compositions, among them five operas, and an important number of recordings.”

The recordings show Sallinen’s aptitude in writing for strings. “I wrote a series of compositions called Chamber Music. They are now ten and consist of a soloist (or soloists) accompanied by a small string orchestra. Maybe the best known of them is the third (‘Nocturnal Dances of Don Juanquijote’) for cello and strings, with around thirty commercial recordings”.

He also formed an affinity with the stage. “My first opera, The Horseman (Ratsumies), was premiered in Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1975. To my great surprise it appeared to be a success, and I was absolutely compelled to prove to myself and others that it was not a coincidence, so the National Opera asked me to write The Red Line. It was also well received, and four more operas followed. The contents and worlds of my six operas are all different, as I was conscious not to repeat myself. Yet both in opera- and symphony writing my effort has always been to build up a musically logical, long-breathing texture (strong architecture). The style, the way of writing has changed during the decades, of course, as is the case by every composer with a large repertoire. The opera Kullervo, based on our national epic Kalevala, is to me an important piece of musical theatre. It was commissioned for the opening of our new opera house in Helsinki, but since the opening was much delayed, the premiere was given by the Finnish group (except the orchestra) in Los Angeles. Since then Kullervo has been staged in different countries, in different languages. The case is equal to my other operas as well. This makes me especially content, because to get an opera work staged somewhere is as difficult as to sell an icebreaker to Zambia!”

Sallinen’s eight symphonies have all been recorded, with a complete cycle available on CPO. “I was very surprised and glad when they announced plans to record this important part of my orchestral repertoire”, he recalls, “and the result was a splendid one. I have also heard that Ondine is planning to record an important part of my latest and central, but so far unrecorded, chamber music repertoire.”

His Fifth Symphony, subtitled ‘Washington Mosaics’, was commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich and the National Symphony Orchestra. “It tells the location of the commissioner, but also its important, central location in the policy of our globe. Today it seems to be even more central than yesterday.”

Songs Of Life And Death, a cycle for baritone Jorma Hynninen, is one of his most striking musical calling cards. A commission from the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, it is to all intents and purposes the composer’s Requiem, written both on Sallinen’s Finnish archipelago and in Provence, in the second half of 1993. “It handles some important and central themes of human life, before, now and in the future”, he says. “I was deeply fascinated by Lassi Nummi’s strong and touching poems. The piece is “dedicated to all of them, whose memory and energy still lingers on this side of the border”.

One of Sallinen’s most significant recent works is Barabbas Dialogues, a series of seven dialogues completed in 2003 to look at one of the most distinctive but mysterious characters in the Easter story. Again the text is provided by Lassi Nummi, and from the composer himself. “When writing the Barabbas Dialogues, says Sallinen, “I was fascinated by the story known by everybody. My approach, not being religious, tries to understand who this man was. A fighter for freedom, a terrorist? The text is partly from the Bible, partly my own. It includes for instance the appearance of Judas, who was I think one of the greatest martyrs of human history. Barabbas Dialogues was originally written for the concert use, but it has also found two appearances on the theatre stage, in Germany and Finland.”

Sallinen enjoys his retirement and has largely stepped back from composition. “I settled in Helsinki some years ago, after spending thirty years of winters in Provence. During the summers I try as often as possible to spend in the archipelago, on my island. Instead of listening to music, I read a lot. Literature has always been my great passion. I still write some music, ‘tempo molto sostenuto’, for the health of my brain. However, there appear to be three new works performed during the season 2024-25.”

He is modestly referring to a new production of The Horseman, at Finnish National Opera in May, then the premiere of new melodrama Shaka, at the Naantali Music Festival on 5th June 2025. An orchestral work, From The Shadows Of Old Songs, was commissioned by the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra and premiered in their concert hall at the end of February.

Sallinen, however, is wary of revealing the content of his new works. “I never analyse my own compositions”, he explains. Yet in a career of stage works characterised by strength of feeling and an original musical voice, it is safe to assume they will continue in rude musical and physical health.