This twenty minute work is essentially a one-movement cello concerto based on dance themes and rhythms. While the previous two works designated "Chamber Music" are examples of gradual unfolding of the orchestral texture and slow revelations of a single main theme, this work uses that technique only sparingly: The work begins and ends in a mysterious, hushed texture from which basic melodic motives emerge, and into which at the end they retreat. But this only takes two or three minutes of the total: The rest is a good-natured, affectionate exploration of various dance ideas.

The work was composed as something of an afterthought after completion of Sallinen's opera "The King Goes Forth to France." The types of dances suggested by the music are a widely varied lot: A lightly syncopated, foxtrot sort of dance, a tango, and a selection of European dance rhythms well known in classical pieces are suggested. They all seem related by motive, and Sallinen seems to delight in making a transition from one sort of dance to another by gradual alterations of the dance rhythms. Beyond that, analysis is superfluous: Sallinen seems to have intended to write a genuinely fun piece, and in that goal has succeeded very well.

© Joseph Stevenson, Rovi