Kysymysten kirja

The Book of Questions for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra (2006) is part of an entire concert, which Kalevi Aho (b. 1949) composed for the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland to be premiered in 2007. In the spring of 2006, he came across the posthumously published collection The Book of Questions (1974) by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), the Chilean poet and winner of a Nobel Prize. The Book of Questions is Neruda's last work, an unconventional testament to his work as a poet. The collection consists exclusively of questions, many of which are strange or unusual in character: they force the reader to look at things in an entirely new perspective. Aho selected the texts for the song cycle from Neruda's questions and combined them into eleven new sets, each containing between two and seven different questions. The Book of Questions thus became a meditative, philosophical song cycle. All eleven sets of questions are performed without a break, and the duration is c. 24 minutes.

The orchestral material is available for hire from the publisher. The orchestration is 1(+afl)1(+ca)11-1000-01-st.