Martinů: Duo No.1 for violin & cello
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) The 1927 Duo for violin and cello was composed in the years when Martinů was the leading Czech musical correspondent in Paris, shuttling back and forth to Prague and reporting on the Parisian musical scene to the Czech cultural press. In Paris he studied composition with Albert Roussel and assimilated many of the trends of the time including jazz, surrealism, and neoclassicism. He was especially taken with Stravinsky's music. During these years he likely heard such characteristic works as Stravinsky's Octet , Concerto for Piano and Winds , and Serenade in A . But as much as one can hear the influence of Stravinsky's neoclassical style in his music at this time, Martinů's own voice clearly comes through. One of the interesting features of the Duo is just how incredibly close the violin and cello lines remain throughout the work, both vertically, as they often share a narrow range of pitches, and horizontally, as...