Treno della notte

SKU: FG.55009-539-7

ISBN 979-0-55009-539-7.

One of the finest Finnish chamber works of recent years involving a clarinet is Mikko Heinio's Treno della notte for clarinet, cello and piano (2000). The composer says of his work: I wanted to write a long, fairly fast-moving composition proceeding without a break in which the moods are at least to some extent dream-like, nocturnal. May 'Treno della notte', the term for a night train in Italian, be a tribute to my much-admired Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni, who in the film Citta della donne (City of Women) falls asleep on a train and is led by a representative of the stronger sex along the most fantastic paths. During a journey lasting a good 17 minutes the listener has time to proceed through 12 connected carriages: the composition has five calm, melodic sequences and four rhythmically dashing dances. It begins with an Introduzione, has a Transitio in the middle and ends with a Coda. In addition to its nocturnal shades, the Heinio work is of sizzling virtuosity, hot Latin rhythms and glowing, sustained melody. The clarinettist plays both a normal B flat instrument and a bass clarinet, thus enriching the timbral scale even further. Heinio does not expect the clarinettist to improvise or to master novel techniques, but otherwise the clarinet part is as challenging as many a concerto.