The string duo repertory is not huge but there are some gems—among them Mozart’s Duos for Violin and Viola and Duos for Violin and Cello by Ravel and Kodaly. The challenge for the composer is to create a full sonority without sounding like a string quartet with members missing. Mozart’s Duos are at times brilliant, like the Sinfonia Concertante without the orchestra (Brahms didn’t write any duos, despite having written a Double Concerto for Violin and Cello).
The Duos by Jan Kalliwoda (1801-1866) are new to me. His solutions to the problem of how to write for the 2 instruments together struck me as ingenious, while stylistically he tips his hat at Schubert and Dvorak—unsurprisingly for a violinist born and trained in Prague. But his voice is entirely his own. Of the two, the second in G-Major is the more striking: from the opening Pastorale (a Romantic-Edenic throwback) and Allegro moderato in G-minor (might Mozart have sounded like this if he’d lived a few more years?) to the interplay of pizzicato, counterpoint, and occasional flashes of virtuosity in the last three movements, the possibilities of violin-and-viola texture are explored fully. He succeeds in his own individual way at making this combo sound complete. As a violinist, I’ve long felt musically “completed” when partnering with a pianist; who knew I could feel the same with a violist?
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