The most exhausting of the four roles is teaching, Mustonen says. “I always feel I learn a lot myself when teaching, verbalising the things you do. You work at different levels – the grand level, the poetic, down to small technical details, looking at the music through a microscope. It’s a relief going on stage again.”

But the roles are each very different. Recitals can be lonely, travelling from city to city, whereas conducting and chamber music are much more social. “You are interacting with people, and I love that and am very inspired. It can be risky because sometimes the interaction is not easy, and playing a solo recital is wonderful because you are not dependent on interaction with others.”

Mustonen tends to compose at home in Finland over summer, especially if he has a large commission. He loves the wilderness – there are bears and wolves in the forest beside his property next to a lake in the shape of Australia – and he can work relatively undisturbed.

Composing is partly a very conscious and active process, but sometimes he feels that the composition is being born, and he is discovering it.

This might sound mystical, he says, but every composer knows that sometimes the work has its own will. “Sometimes you can write something, and it’s a great effort and you think it’s very cleverly done, but it doesn’t really work. It can be tough because you’ve done a lot of work but then you have to throw 10 pages in the dustbin and rewrite.”

Mustonen nearly always writes the end of a piece quite early, even though he doesn’t yet know what will happen in between. And, because composers always get stuck sometimes, he writes several spots at the same time and just continues where it flows. “It’s unlikely you will get stuck in four places at the same time, but you have to trust your intuition as to how it will come together.”

He has a great affection for Australia, and has been visiting for some 30 years. He met ACO director Richard Tognetti through a mutual friend, cellist Steven Isserlis, and the pair instantly became strong friends. “We immediately struck such an inspired collaboration, and then I collaborated with other orchestras too, fantastic orchestras like the Sydney Symphony and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.”

Loading

His music is played frequently in Australia, especially by the ACO. “I hear quite a lot that my children, my compositions, they are busy there. I am very grateful that Australia is warm and friendly to my music, and I love Australia very much.”

Olli Mustonen tours with the ACO from September 15 to 28 with performances in Melbourne from September 17 to 19.