Joseph Szigeti & Igor Stravinsky play Stravinsky's Duo Concertante (HD)

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971):
Duo Concertant(e)
1. Cantilene
2. Eglogue 1
3. Eglogue 2
4. Gigue
5. Dithyramb

Igor Stravinsky, piano and Joesph Szigeti, violin
Recorded in 1933

Stravinsky 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.