Encyclopedia > Double Concerto for Violin and Cello
Lou Harrison's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan was composed in 1981-1982 upon the request of Kenneth Goldsmith of the Mirecourt Trio after the completion of Scenes from Cavafy.
As the name implies it is scored for two traditional European classical stringed instruments and a Javanesepercussion ensemble, gamelan, consisting of metallaphones, gongs, and drums. Harrison mostly has the string duo play heterophonic unison passages and the gamelan proceeds more or less traditionally. It consists of three movements:
Grandly, but moderate
Stampede
Allegro moderato
"Stampede" is the English translation of one of Harrison's favored forms, estampie, and the movement, in estampie form, in contrast the outer movements uses a eight-note mode for variety and is also in an untraditional triple meter.
It has been recorded by the Mirecourt Trio in the Mills College Art Gallery. Goldsmith described it as, "Like playing Tchaikowsky inside Big Ben."
The violin is the highest-pitched member of a family of instruments that includes the viola, cello, and double bass.
Violins are tuned by turning the pegs in the pegbox under the scroll, or by adjusting the fine tuner screws at the tailpiece.
A violin is usually played using a bow consisting of a stick with a ribbon of horsehair strung between the tip and frog (or nut, or heel) at opposite ends.
He wrote one concerto each for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, four for horn, one for flute and harp, and a sinfonia concertante for violin and viola.
Brahms's first piano concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was the result of an immense amount of work on a mass of material originally intended for a symphony.
Masterpieces were written by Edward Elgar (for violin and for cello), Sergei Rachmaninoff (four piano concertos), Jean Sibelius (for violin), Frederick Delius (for violin, for cello, for piano; and a DoubleConcerto for violin and cello), Karol Szymanowski (two for violin), and Richard Strauss (2 horn concertos).
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