Sallinen's Seven Symphonies

Extract

The instinct to compose ‘symphonically’ – insofar as we understand what this designation has come to mean – has taken a battering in our century: a century still licking wound after wound inflicted by the calculated havoc of war wreaked on whole populations, and compounded by a premeditated serial cruelty unprecedented in world history. As if in anticipation of this unleashed depravity, and then as its indirect consequence, the nucleus of unshackled symphonic creativity shifted from the centre of Europe to selected geographical ‘outer frontiers’ of the continent. Scandinavia's star was modestly ascending many decades before the 19th century drew to a close. Then, for the first quarter of the 20th, there emerged the towering figure of Sibelius, implanted in a small country which won its autonomy during his years of productivity. Compositional talent in Finland has reasserted itself during this century's last quarter. And from within that tenacious nation the most commanding figure presently endowed with the ability to rethink and put symphonic syntax to advantage is Aulis Sallinen (born 1935), though his international reputation rests upon the new life he has injected into the art form of opera.