Charles Wuorinen distinguished his Double solo for horn trio from the two horn trios he has written by explaining, "It's also a horn trio but it really is a horn and violin solo with a piano accompaniment." Indeed, while one of the distinguishing features of Wuorinen's chamber trios is their almost conversational discourse between instruments, the violin and horn move mostly independently of each other in the Double solo, although the distance between them is limited by the fact that they must share an accompaniment. The violin takes an aggressive approach, beginning with rough slashes and tense crescendos on sustained notes, later dancing around the notes with portamenti, tense trills, and swooping double stops. The horn's music is generally less mercurial, though when the piano urges both to passion, the horn generates considerable heat. The two instruments' paths often converge, but they break back off into their own music when the accompaniment allows. The result is less neatly contained than some Wuorinen works, but the messy interactions between instruments here have an engaging energy and intelligence of their own. In the striking ending, the work appears to end multiple times, only to have all three instruments begin playing again, yoked closely together, after long pauses. Though the closing chord is peaceful enough, it suggests that the vitality of the piece was drained as the two solos lost their independence—an imaginative ending to an intriguing work.

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