Esa-Pekka Salonen: 'When I was asked to write a piece for solo horn for the Holger Fransman Memorial Competition, I agreed right away. I decided to write my own Concert Etude, and thus create a little homage to my teacher, who in fact was like a grandfather to me. In this piece I treat the horn as a virtuoso instrument, capable of acrobatics as well as the idiomatic melodic expression. In a way, I wrote the piece for the great horn player I never became.'