Esa-Pekka Salonen: Second Meeting for Oboe and Piano

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