Five Portraits of Women is a set of songs with large ensemble derived by Aulis Sallinen from arias from three of his operas: The Red Line, The King Goes Forth to France and Kullervo. Each draws a portrait of a womancompelled in her role by fate or a mission. The vocal lines differ only very slightly from their original counterparts in the operas but the revised orchestral accompaniment creates an extraordinary new soundscape as background tothe arias, consisting as it does of a woodw...