Eight Portraits

for soprano solo horn and large ensemble - Full Score-Five Portraits of Women is a set of songs with large ensemble derived by Aulis Sallinen from arias from three of his operas: The Red Line The King Goes Forth to France and Kullervo. Each draws a portrait of a woman compelled in her role by fate or a mission. The vocal lines differ only very slightly from their original counterparts in the operas but the revised orchestral accompaniment creates an extraordinary new soundscape as background to the arias consisting as it does of a woodwind orchestra four cellos a harp and a piano. There is also a solo French horn which acts as a sort of masculine counterweight to the female vocalist. Tuiskuaa lunta (It is stillsnowing) (from The Red Line) is the story of Riikka waiting in her snowbound cabin for the arrival of a good life-enhancing message. Carolinen häät (Caroline’s Wedding) (from The King Goes Forth to France) describes the deranged Caroline Tammatukka (Caroline with the Thick Mane) in a feverish hallucination involving the King whose arrival she awaits. The King is in fact already married but Caroline believes that he has left France for their wedding. Minä odotan sinua paimen (When we meet this evening) (from Kullervo) is the aria of the smith’s young wife who waits impatiently for the arrival of Kullervo. Itkenkö minä sinua? (How can you ask if I’ll mourn you) from the same opera describes the all-embracing love of a mother which encourages yet overrules the scorn of others for the youth. On tämä silta tehty naisista (That’s the bridge that’s made of womankind) (from The King Goes Forth to France) is the song of Caroline Iloinen [The Nice Caroline] explaining the biological eternal mission of woman as the bearer and birth-giver of life. The libretto of the opera The King Goes Forth to France is written by Paavo Haavikko; the librettos of The Red Line and Kullervo are by the composer. Five Portraits of Women was commissioned by the Finnish Radio Symphony

Poul Ruders' Handel Variations for Orchestra (2009) -Ninety Symphonic Reflections on Eight Bars by Georg Friedrich Handel.Commissioned by and dedicated to the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in celebration of their 75th anniversary 2010. Premiered by The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra conducted by Giancarlo Andretta at the Aarhus Concert Hall 14 January 2010. Programme noteThe short feisty Bourrée from Handel´s famous Water Music (First Suite in F major) has for some years been hovering at the back of my mind as possessing the perfectpotential for a series of variations. Not unlike the short 'morsel' by Henry Purcell (the witches Ho-ho-ho-chorus from the opera Dido and Aeneas) which kicks off the ten variations of my orchestral work Concerto in Pieces the music per se is not particularly interesting but it nevertheless grows on you and is difficult to get rid of. It is merely a handful of sequences (a technique much used in the Baroque era - a method in which the same motif is being shifted up and down in a specified order). Actually it is only the first eight bars of the Bourrée which I haul through the wringer.It would be obvious to assume that Handel Variations make up a sequel to Concerto in Pieces but in spite of the similarity in character between the two chosen themes the Handel Variations are far more symphonically coherent. There are no less than ninety (!) variations and each variation (they are relatively short ranging from four up to forty-something bars) runs seamlessly into the next creating a huge symphonic body of constantly changing colours. I set out with the original theme without interfering but the 'erosion' begins to gnaw away at the theme already from the first variation. Imagine a vast gallery of Handel portraits in which Georg Friedrich appears at first fully recognizable but then the 'disfiguration' sets in and