Zoltán Kodály's Duo for violin and cello, Op. 7, was composed at the start of World War I (1914), but not played in public until a full decade later when it was heard in Salzburg as part of the 1924 ISCM Festival. In the century since its birth it has become a cornerstone in the scant repertoire for violin and cello duo—a miniature ensemble that has been heartily neglected by composers. The Kodály Duo is in fact bested in popularity only by the Ravel Sonata for violin and cello of 1920-1922.

The Duo's three movements follow the traditional fast-slow-fast plan. As one would expect, the first movement (Allegro serioso, non troppo) is full of rhapsodic folk-music gestures that gush forth from the one instrument and then the other (Kodály was, after all, Bartók's comrade-in-arms in fusing together central European folk music and traditional art music). The solo cello ushers in the central Adagio movement, and then the violin joins in with great, fluctuating passion. The finale begins with a wandering, rhetorical Maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento; one can easily hear the instruments' gestures as words rather than abstract musical cells. After this introductory section, a sparkling Presto—the body of the movement—takes off.

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