ABSTRACT
Aulis Sallinen had trained as an elementary school teacher and, on completion of his compositional studies, took the post of orchestral manager at the Finnish Radio Orchestra. As the source of its symphonic process relies essentially on the manipulation of small cells, and this is achieved through a focus on intervallic concerns, Sallinen's motivic workings may emerge from earlier serial thinking. Sallinen is able to side-step such formal limitations by adopting a strong sense of tonal reference but there are features of his method – an obsessive intervallic dexterity – that are common to any serial composer. Sallinen adopts a variety of approaches to matters of drama and the expressive range is correspondingly broadened, somewhat in contrast to his instrumental works. While the language of Sallinen's music may cause some critics to view its neo-romantic nature as some kind of limitation, the formal processing and structural consequences remain refreshingly original and highly challenging.
