This is an exceptionally impressive work, one of the finest of all pieces for two stringed instruments in the repertoire. It is completely melodious and beautiful, yet has rhythmic drive in its outer movements. The individual part-writing is superb and it has richer and broader sound than many string quartets.

Martinu (1890-1959) took a strong interest in the Baroque concerto grosso form during the early '30s, and emulated its emphasis on brilliant writing for solo instruments. Along with that interest came attraction to another form from an older era of music, the madrigal. Although the term madrigal goes back to the fourteenth century, its Baroque revival altered its meaning. Essentially it was a broad term, referring to any secular polyphonic work. Back then it was generally implied that a madrigal was a vocal work, but the term has been extended to include similar compositions for instruments only. Martinu applied the name madrigal to at least 20 individual compositions.

When Martinu wrote this duo he was recuperating from a dreadful accident: He had broken his skull in a fall of over ten feet to concrete. During his recuperation he concentrated on chamber music because it was easier to write pieces for a half-dozen or fewer instruments than to write orchestral music, which requires a composer to fill in over as many as two dozen or even more staves of music. Martinu wrote the Duo between his String Quartets No. 6 and No. 7, so he was strongly in touch with string technique at the time. But this set of Madrigals (also known as Duo for violin and violin No. 1) is no small-scale work. It is around 16 minutes long and in three movements following a sonata-form layout.

The two parts are individual and equal at nearly all times in the music. There are times when one or the other instrument has a dominant melodic line, but then the subsidiary part always has considerable interest. For the most part, the interest is in both parts, or the two are rapidly trading phrases in response to each other, particularly in the first movement.

It opens in the tempo Poco Allegro. As we have observed, imitation is an important texture in this work. There is a playful mood to the music, but tensions rise in a central stretto, double-stopping on both instruments enriches the texture, and there is a darkened mood, particularly in the yearning phrases of the violin.

The middle movement is Poco Andante. Trills and other decorative techniques help establish a spooky mood, but rich melody soon prevails.

In the finale, Allegro, a playful mood establishes itself at once, with the two instruments playing rhythmically together but in separate parts. This alternates with imitative technique and full polyphony in a joyful conclusion.

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