Duo for 2 Cellos
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Cello
- Composed
- 2015
- Duration
- 5'30''
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), RSN 81768, call no. MI 3123 S6545duo
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About this piece
Linda Catlin Smith wrote this duo in Toronto in 2015. In her note she says she loves the cello and wanted to see if she could write for two of them, and that the two lines wind around each other like a pas de deux. Marked languid, unlaboured and molto legato at quarter note = 56, it passes a slow, lightly ornamented melody back and forth between the players over held notes and open fifths, gathers into a section of quiet paired double stops, and closes softly on an open G and D. Amahl Arulanandam and Dobrochna Zubek of Toronto's Thin Edge New Music Collective recorded it for Smith's album Dark Flower (Redshift Records, 2023) and the Canadian Music Centre lists their December 2023 performance at Array in Toronto as the premiere.
Technical overview
Two equal parts in bass clef, moving between 4/4, 5/4 and 6/4 at a slow tempo. Both stay in the lower and middle positions, with the highest notes a little above middle C, but the rhythm is independent and often tied across the beat: triplets, quintuplet sixteenths, dotted figures and grace notes in one part against sustained notes in the other. Double stops are mostly fifths and sixths against an open G string.
Technical focus
- Dotted Rhythms
- Double Stops
- Dynamics
- Ensemble Skills
- Grace Notes
- Legato
- Meter Changes
- Shifting
- Syncopation
- Triplets