{"id":27725,"date":"2026-04-29T15:39:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T15:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/?page_id=27725"},"modified":"2026-04-29T15:53:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T15:53:55","slug":"rising-to-the-occasion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/en\/discover-chamber-music\/rising-to-the-occasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising to the occasion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Jonathan Lyness
Programme Curator<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I think of a violin and cello duo, I suppose my first thought is of Brahms\u2019s Double Concerto in A minor, his final orchestral work, composed in 1887. For whilst the violin\/cello duo does have its own repertoire, with no need for an orchestra, it\u2019s not as large as one might expect. In the classical era, the duo combo of two violins or violin\/viola was much preferred. I suppose the problem lies in the fact that the cello, being so much lower than the violin, might have been destined for a purely accompanying role. For the two instruments to take turns accompanying each other, the cello must rise to a higher register. Believe it or not, this is what happens on board HMS Surprise in the 2003 epic \u2018Master and Commander\u2019<\/em> starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany who together, as violinist and cellist, \u2018play\u2019 some rather lovely Boccherini!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Giuseppe Tartini, c.1740 – Concerto a Violoncello principale obligato<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In his delightful Duo in D major, Haydn not only takes the cello into the violin\u2019s register \u2013 so as the two instruments can accompany each other \u2013 but he also begins to dovetail them in proper duo-like fashion. It\u2019s highly accomplished writing, and quite novel for its time, though Haydn knew what he was doing \u2013 he also exploited the instrument in two highly successful cello concertos. But in his piano trios, Haydn reverted to type. It took Beethoven and Schubert, in piano trios composed a few decades later, to once more take the cello into the violin\u2019s register with works that, in some places, and especially in Schubert\u2019s slow movements, feel like violin\/cello duos with piano, the violin and cello lovingly weaving their melodic lines together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Joseph Haydn c.1791<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sixty years later, Brahms did the same in his Double Concerto, where the writing for the cello is notoriously high, some commentators describing the two instruments as behaving like one \u2018super\u2019 string instrument. This work may have acted as a springboard for the violin\/cello duo, setting it up nicely for the early c20th when, quite suddenly, and over a concentrated period of around 20 years, successful violin\/cello duos appeared from a myriad of composers including Gli\u00e8re, Ravel, Honegger, Kodaly, Martinu, Villa-Lobos, Imogen Holst, Rebecca Clarke and Frederick Delius whose 1915 work is not a duo but actually another Double Concerto in the manner of Brahms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Maurice Ravel 1920<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kodaly wrote his Duo for Violin and Cello in 1914 when war was looming. It is big and bold, sometimes harrowing, sometimes optimistic, always energised and full of rhythmic vigour. Rebecca Clarke\u2019s 1916 contribution started life as a viola\/cello duo but she adapted it for violin\/cello. Ravel\u2019s Sonata for Violin and Cello, composed from 1920 to 1922, was dedicated to Debussy who had died at the end of the war. Here, Ravel finds a new economy of means, with both instruments entwined in highly contrapuntal lines whilst engaged in technical wizardry such as double-stops, harmonics and pizzicatos. Sometimes the two instruments appear to be in sympathy; sometimes they play in separate keys! Theirs would appear to be an on-off relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musicians<\/h2>\n\n\n\n