IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971): Duo Concertant pour violon et piano 1. Cantilène 2. Eglogue I at 2:58 3. Eglogue II at 5:05 4. Gigue at 7:44 5. Dithyrambe at 12:04
Igor Stravinsky, piano and Samuel Dushkin, violin Recorded in 1933
For years, Stravinsky resisted writing for violin and piano, complaining that he \"had taken no pleasure in the blend of strings struck in the piano with strings set in vibration with the bow.\" But after writing his Violin Concerto for the Russian-American violinist Samuel Dushkin (1891-1976), Stravinsky became more interested in music for the violin-piano duo. When he and Dushkin went on recital tours together through Europe in the early 1930s, Stravinsky wrote the Duo Concertant (1932) for the two of them to play; he also made arrangements for violin and piano at that time of several of his orchestral works.
Stravinsky later claimed that a book on Petrarch by Charles-Albert Cingria strongly influenced the Duo Concertant; he believed this music \"a lyrical composition, a work of musical versification\" influenced by \"the pastoral poets of antiquity and their scholarly art and technique.\"
While it is true that three of the five movements have Greek titles, the listener might do best to take this music on its own terms rather than searching too closely for its relation to ancient poetry. Of particular interest in this sonata-like work are the many ways Stravinsky solves the problems he recognized in combining two instruments of such different sonorities.
The first movement's title, Cantilène, suggests a long arc of melody, but Stravinsky fractures any sense of melodic line here-instead, this music is jagged, almost pointillistic. The next two movements are each called Eglogue, a title that denotes a pastoral poem, often in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. The first falls into several sections, beginning with a bagpipe-like drone in the violin; the second is gracefully lyric, built on winding, sinuous themes.
The extended Gigue is, as its title suggests, a dance movement; it makes use of left-handed pizzicatos and includes several contrasting sections. Stravinsky called the final movement Dithyramb, which is historically a frenzied dance or hymn in praise of Dionysus.
Such a title hardly seems apt for music of such formal-almost severe-beauty; perhaps Stravinsky saw in the graceful lyricism that brings the Duo to its close an emotional release equivalent to dithyrambic frenzy.