- Date: 1983
- Composer: Gunther Schuller
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
Duologue came to be because of a McKim Fund Library of Congress commission; it won second prize in the 1985 Kennedy Center Friedheim Competition. The titles of the work's four sections (Four Characteristic Pieces) suggest the mood of each piece: Threnody, Parody, Fantasia, and Fiddle Music.Ed Mattos of the Washington Post reviewed the work based on its premiere in Washington in May, 1984: ". . . It is expert stuff, written by a composer who knows what he is about. The violin writing is idiomatic, the piano wonderfully sonorous, everything sitting in the right place for the instruments. There is a bit of everything: slow, legato phrases for the violin, punctuating chords by the piano, pure sounds for each participant, and fine rhythmic figures that make an impact . . ."
A recording made possible by the McKim fund is available: GM 2021D with Rafael Druian, violin, and Benjamin Pasternack, piano, which duo also premiered the work at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. Joshua Berrett, writing a review of the recording for the journal American Music, characterized the music: "The first movement, a tour-de-force of eighth-note meters, has an agitato midsection buttressed by outer, more somber, chromatic and canonic portions. It contrasts vividly with the second movement, which Schuller describes as 'pixyish and quirky, until the final whimsical, wispy coda.' It is a movement replete with such violinistic effects as left-hand pizzicato, ricochet, sul tasto, ponticello bowings, and harmonics, as well as various varieties of glissando [jazz influence?] and tremelo. The third movement fluctuates between lyrical and subito agitato passages until 'ending in an incantatory, finally quieting coda.'" The last movement is clearly imitative of fiddle music, as its title indicates. ~ Norbert Carnovale, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Gunther Schuller: Sextet; Fantasy-Suite; Duologue | 1999 |
| Schuller: Duologue; Paine: Violin Sonata, Op. 24 | 1988 |
