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- Christian Wolff
Duo for Violins (1950)
- C.F. Peters Corporation (World)
Programme Note
Duo for 2 violins (1950) is the first composition made after I started my few composition lessons with John Cage. He had me learn his structural procedure of systematized and fixed arithmetical proportions ("rhythmic structure") and make single line melodies using no more than 5 or so pitches. That notion of using quite limited material to focus with clear attention probably led to my idea of making pieces with very small numbers of pitches (3 or 4), absolute pitches, no octave transpositions. I thought that, for careful listening, the actual resulting music was quite various. Because of my interest at the time in dissonance, in this piece the three pitches are adjacent D, Eb, E natural (with no octave transpositions).
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- Christian Wolff at 90
- Self-taught but for composition lessons with John Cage, Christian Wolff was a key member of the post-WWII New York experimental music scene that included Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and pianist David Tudor, among others. For the majority of Wolff’s adult life, he served as a professor of classics at Harvard and later Dartmouth, with waves of musical productivity supplementing his career as an academic.
Reviews
"Throughout 'Duo for 2 Violins' (1950), Wolff’s first composition written under the tutelage of Cage, each violinist trades notes back and forth, exploring the patterns that can be formed with just three notes that are a half-step apart [...] The music often hovers in place, playing with varying textures almost imperceptible changes. Buoyant plucks erupt from long, bowed tones, moving from grainy to taut and back again. Forgoing dramatic vibrato in favor of a direct, resonant sound, Wolff finds meditation and grace within restriction."