Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1996)

Wallin’s Clarinet Concerto [written in 1996,] won the Nordic Music Council’s music prize a year later. And with good reason: along with Jouni Kaipainen’s Carpe Diem, it is one of the finest Nordic clarinet concertos since Nielsen’s. Wallin cross-cuts music of uneasy lyricism with explosions of skinhead energy, reflecting, he says, the clarinet’s dual nature: it is equally at home in the silky domesticity of the Mozart concerto and the ‘rough, charging masculinity of Balkan folk music’. It’s the Dr Hyde character that finally conquers, as Wallin sweeps the listener of his feet ion a thrilling bare-back gallop.

The solo instrument ventures into every corner of its psyche, trilling dulcetly in the lower range and shooting to the skies in penetrating tones. Wallin places contrasting materials in seamless juxtaposition, with the orchestra often taking over where the clarinet leaves off [as] Wallin engages in myriad intriguing combinations along the way.
June 2003