Second Meeting was written in January 1992. The first performance took place in Stockholm in February (Bengt Rosengren, oboe and Stefan Bojsten, piano). The work belongs to a planned series of virtuoso duos, "meetings". The first one (from 1982) is written for clarinet and harpsichord.

Formally, Second Meeting is very close to a familiar "theme and variations" category, although there are seven themes, or melodies, all quite closely related.

In the autumn of the same year I decided to write a version of the piece for oboe and a small orchestra, trying to remain reasonably faithful to the original (a la Ravel, perhaps). The orchestral version is called Mimo 1).

Esa-Pekka Salonen