The Mallet Concerto started as a commission by the Norwegian Ensemble Ernst. Räihälä had a concert of his works along with Norwegian Jon Øivind Ness in Oslo in 1999, and the concerto was specially written for the ensemble and its percussionist Eirik Raude. The original line-up was a wind quintet, trumpet, trombone, percussion, mallet solo and a string quintet but Räihälä enhanced it in 2002 into a sinfonietta size and the new version had its premiere in Joensuu, Finland, in April 2002 with Hannu Porkka as the soloist and Hannu Koivula as conductor.
The Mallet Concerto is in three movements that are played without interval. The largest of them is the mobile first, which applies the marimba as the solo instrument. In the slow second movement the soloist uses vibraphone only and then shifts over to the xylophone for the vivacious finale.