Grief, it turns out, makes for superb programming – provided you trust it to do the talking. This WASO concert gathered a doomed Finnish folk-hero, a Baroque widower and a symphony denying its own sorrow, and let three very different composers argue the case for suffering as the engine of great music.

Finnish conductor Kristian Sallinen made his Australian debut on the Winthrop Hall podium, and the pedigree behind him is formidable: early tutelage under Jorma Panula – teacher, in one guise or another, of most of the current generation of internationally significant Finnish conductors – followed by Sibelius Academy studies with Sakari Oramo and mentorship from Paavo Järvi and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Finnish critics have praised the rhythmic drive and a sense of style in his conducting (Helsingin Sanomat) and noted tempos that felt like the only possible ones under his baton (Aamulehti). Perth got its first taste of both on Friday.

Kristian Sallinen conducts the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Daniel James Grant

The curtain-raiser was Leevi Madetoja’s Kullervo, an 18-minute symphonic poem the 26-year-old wrote in 1913 on the same Kalevala...