His first large scale orchestral work, Concerto for saxophone and orchestra, subtitled ‘…auf den ersten blick und ohne zu wissen…’ (roughly, ‘at first sight and without knowing’) dates from the early eighties, when Salonen was undertaking an extended period of study in Milan with Niccolò Castiglioni. The title of the piece comes from Kafka’s The Trial. Salonen felt Kafka here expressed something about the imaginary world that his piece inhabits. Salonen’s second orchestral work, entitled Giro, is also from this period, sharing something of the same harmonic structure. Ten years were to pass before Salonen had the time to complete another piece on this scale. In the first half of 1982, he worked in the studios of the Finnish Broadcasting Company on a radiophonic composition, Baalal, which was entered for the Prix Italia competition. He also began a series of solo works collectively entitled Yta (‘surface’); these present an ever-changing surface of music over a dense harmonic structure. Complementary to Yta are the virtuoso duos Meetings. The two thus far completed span a decade from 1982 to 1992. The first is scored for clarinet and harpsichord; the second, for oboe and piano, ultimately formed the basis for Salonen’s orchestral oboe concerto Mimo II.

Floof is a frankly experimental piece originally written in 1982, but heavily revised in 1990. Floof finds the composer setting texts by the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. This ebullient, even histrionic tour de force for soprano and small ensemble won the UNESCO Rostrum prize in 1992 and has since been widely performed internationally.

During 1996, Salonen found time from his busy conducting schedule to compose a major orchestral piece, L.A. Variations, a commission of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The premiere in January 1997 was triumphant; L.A. Variations marked the beginning of a newly fertile composing life. In June 1997, Salonen made extensive revisions to Giro: the new version was premiered at the Avanti! Summer Sounds Festival in Finland. Another orchestral work, Gambit, was composed as a fortieth birthday present for his compatriot and great friend Magnus Lindberg, and was premiered in May 1998 in Amsterdam.

In 1999, Mr. Salonen completed Five Images After Sappho, a song-cycle for soprano and fourteen instruments. Co-commissioned by the Ojai Festival in California and the London Sinfonietta, it was premiered on June in Ojai by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group conducted by the composer, and the European premiere took place on 11 December 1999, by the London Sinfonietta also conducted by Salonen.

Salonen has taken a year’s sabbatical from the 2000 season to write a work for solo horn, a concerto for the cellist Anssi Karttunen, and an orchestral piece.