The Seasons of Love (2023)
(for Clarinet and String Orchestra)

A life-long intimate relationship is increasingly rare these days. Young love is solemnly sanctified, but if not before, many marriages stumble beneath the weight of the hectic family years. Those who survive the storms of early autumn have to regroup as the children fly the nest. The finiteness of life begins to dawn on people in the depths of winter.

The Seasons of Love celebrates the power of love that changes with life’s seasons. I have dedicated it to the love of my life, Lauri Sallinen, my husband and the father of my children. The Seasons of Love is at the same time a sort of portrait of him – at different stages in life, in the past and the future – as a clarinettist and person; just as he is, as I love him. There are also some echoes in the work of my Polar Pearls concerto for chamber orchestra.

- Outi Tarkiainen

1. Young Love (spring-winter)
2. Sacrament (spring-summer)
3. Fruit (autumn-summer)
4. New Dimensions (autumn-winter)
5. Epilogue

There are eight seasons in the Sámi annual round: spring, summer, autumn and winter, plus spring-winter, spring-summer, autumn-summer and autumn-winter, in between the two main seasons as their names indicate.