Sallinen's Sonata For Cello And Piano Op.86 was commissioned by the Naantali Music Festival Finland in 2004. It was first performed by Arto Noras and Rolf Gothoni at Naantali Church on 10th June 2005 as part of the festival. The piece is structured across four movements a Barcarola a Serenata a Scherzo and an Epilogue.

Busoni was just sixteen years old when he wrote the extraordinary Serenata and the quality of the music is exceptional. The work draws inspiration from the serenade as love song and the interplay between the warm lyrical cello line countered by its bright and lively piano partner is highly effective. In preparing this new addition cellist Lowrii Blake has consulted the original manuscript of this undeservedly neglected work.

'As the title suggests my Serenata Notturna evokes the atmosphere of night music. Following a reflective opening where the pitch development outlines a twelve-note series the music gradually becomes more agitated developing into a kind of danse macabre eventually reaching a powerful climax. The music then subsides into a much more tranquil atmosphere and the previous dissonant material transposes itself into a simple melody (like a lullaby) uttered by the cello the outline of which both melodically and in terms of the accompaniment figuration has already been present in the piece since the beginning. Thus the turmoil of the first part of the work becomes transfiguredinto something much more peaceful - hence the quotation that prefaces the score: 'out of darkness cometh light'.'Edward Gregson