Clarino

As Printed on a Score

In Baroque scores Clarino (plural Clarini) labels the high trumpet part, abbreviated Clno. or Cln. Classical scores by Haydn and Mozart often keep the name for the ordinary trumpets — Clarini in C, Clarino I in D — so on those pages it simply means trumpet, read in the stated key like any Tromba.

Abbreviations: Clno.

Also spelled: Clarini

How Composers Use It

Clarino playing is the high register of the natural trumpet, roughly from the eighth harmonic upward, where the series is close enough to play scales: the brilliant first-trumpet parts of Bach and Handel. When you meet the word in a Classical score, read it as trumpet. In new music the word is historical; for a high, light line, ask for a piccolo trumpet or a trumpet in D instead.

Example

Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C major (“Jupiter”), K. 551, first movement: the trumpets are labelled “Clarino I in C” and “Clarino II in C”.

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