Programme Note
"The material used for Shadows has a clear connection with that in the beginning of Act III of my third opera, The King Goes Forth to France. This is no coincidence for the orchestral prelude was composed immediately after the completion of the opera's second act. Thus the conception of this piece was also for me a kind of prelude before I embarked on writing the third and last act of The King.
" Yet Shadows is in form, an entirely independent orchestral work, although its lyrical and dramatic ingredients reflect the philosophy of the opera."
© Aulis Sallinen