Osmo Vänskä
Martin Fröst Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sauli Zinovjev

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) moved from his hometown of Salzburg to Vienna in 1781, where he would spend the rest of his life. He flourished as a concert pianist and became acquainted with some of the city’s finest musicians – among them the clarinetist Anton Stadler, three years his senior. Mozart loved the sound of the clarinet, and he and Stadler became close friends, despite the clarinetist’s somewhat dubious reputation.

The clarinet was still a relatively new and evolving instrument in Mozart’s time. Stadler often played the basset clarinet, an extended version with a deeper range, and it was for this instrument that Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto in A major in the autumn of 1791. The concerto would become the last work he completed, and after his death, it was revised and published for the standard clarinet.

“At its best, a composition contains everything—an entire life in a single moment,” writes Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev (b. 1988). He describes this desire to portray a complete universe as his creative driving force, reaching a new high point with his first symphony, Taste of Metal (2024). The inspiration for the work came from Finnish sculptor Markus Copper:

“In the same spirit, Taste of Metal explores an intense, all-encompassing range of experiences, embracing beauty and brutality with equal force. From subterranean depths to fluid motion, from internal combustion to explosive outbursts, the symphony unfolds as a sensory journey. It evokes the experience of metal—not just its sound, but its taste, weight, and presence.”

Taste of Metal was commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and Orchestre de Paris.