In the 18th century, the operas of Mozart were so popular in Prague that their tunes were arranged for small wind bands to play on street corners so musicians could collect the 18th century equivalent of a buck or two tossed into an open instrument case.

Now, as popular as the contemporary opera composer Aulis Sallinen might be in his native Finland, we doubt the same motivation was at work in the minds of a music foundation in Manchester, England, and the College Band Directors National Association of the United States when they commissioned Sallinen to write a piece for wind band. Sallinen crafted the new work based on tunes from his satirical opera “The Palace.”

The premiere of Sallinen’s “Palace Rhapsody” was duly given by the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra at the Cheltenham Festival in the U.K. on today’s date 1997.

Sallinen freely confessed he was thinking of those wind band arrangements of Mozart when he fulfilled his commission, however, which is not all that surprising, since the libretto for Sallinen’s 20th century opera is somewhat inspired by Mozart’s 18th Century opera, “The Abduction from the Sergalio.“

Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) The Palace Rhapsody, Op. 72 Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic;Ari Rasilainen, cond CPO 999972