None of this material is new. The Mauermusik dates from 1962 when the composer was living in Cologne. It is an orchestral elegy written to commemorate a youth killed crossing the Berlin wall, and was Sallinen's first work to reach the catalogue. It is quite a powerful piece in the neoexpressionist idiom and initially appeared on Decca in harness with Berglund's first account of the Sibelius Fourth Symphony. The Chamber Music III is a transcription for full strings of the Third String Quartet, commissioned in 1969 by the Swedish Rikskonserter to be performed in schools throughout Sweden. Like so many of Sallinen's works of the 1960s it is a set of variations: its sub-title, Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintriki's funeral march denotes its use of a well-known Finnish folk theme. Incidentally, inspired by the example of Hindemith's Kammermusik, Sallinen composed a number of concertante works for chamber groupings.
The Chamber Music I comes from 1975 and was written in the immediate wake of his opera, Ratsumies (''The Horseman'', whose reappearance on a Finlandia CD transfer I noted in these columns last December) and has greater consistency of inspiration than The nocturnal dances of Don Juanquixote for cello and orchestra, written for the marvellous Finnish cellist, Arto Noras. Sallinen speaks of it incorporating ''nostalgic recollections'' of the days when he was making an income from playing in a restaurant band. The juxtaposition of two completely disparate styles does not really ring true, and despite the committed advocacy of Noras the main idea sounds cheap, and sits uneasily with the surrounding material. Not a convincing work, nor a compilation that shows this composer at anywhere near his best. Good performances and recording throughout.'