Dur. 9 min

One of the big projects of Kalevi Aho (b. 1949) has been to create a virtuoso solo piece for every central instrument of the symphony orchestra. When the Italian Risuonanza Festival asked for a solo trombone piece, the composer was glad, because the trombone solo was still lacking from the Solo series. Kalevi Aho tells: I like the trombone as an instrument, and I had before the Solo XIII composed already two big trombone works. In my Symphony No. 9 (1994) I have used the trombone as a solo instrument - in the premiere the Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg played its demanding solo part - and 2010 I composed also a big trombone concerto for the Dutch trombonist Jörgen van Rijen. In Solo XIII (2017) I could utilize my knowledge about the possibilities of the instrument. The piece is in one movement, but it includes several slower and faster sections. It is a virtuoso piece, but the virtuosity comes from the psychological contents of the work and its form is dramaturgically quite clear.

Rocco Rescigno played the premiere at the Risuonanze Festival in Pasian di Prato, on 31 May 2019. The duration of the piece is c. 9 minutes.