Kristian Rusila

"Triangulum is a sonata for clarinet and piano. Triangulum is also a group of three stars in the northern sky, a so-called constellation. This has something to do with the starting point of the first movement of this piece. As a musical material I had three themes, or musical situations, as distant and different from each others as possible. The idea was to avoid any material similarities between them. But at the same time I needed something that could unite them, to create a uniform piece of music. The sonata form, as an overall plan, was one possible solution, the one I wanted to try.

"The second movement consists of a theme and six variations contrasted by light pizzicato-like andantino-intermezzos in between. This pizzicato music begins the whole movement, as a contrast to the legato-line and 'heavyness' of the first movement. Its function is also to make the movement not sound like a slow movement in a traditional sense.

"The third movement is a rapid, virtuoso scherzo, interrupted several times by different sized chorallike textures which are not profiled as independent identities."

© Kristian Rusila, 1998