For some forty years, from 1921 to 1960, William Kincaid was the first flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. On his death in 1967, a group of Kincaid's students and admirers approached Copland about commissioning a work for flute in his memory. The composer took almost four years to fulfill the commission, but in 1971 he completed the Duo for flute and piano, which was premiered by Elaine Shaffer, one of Kincaid's students, and pianist Hephzibah Menuhin at Philadelphia's Settlement Music School on October 3 of that year. A few years later Copland asked Robert Mann, violinist in the Juilliard Quartet, to help him to transcribe the work for violin and piano. Mann premiered this new arrangement with pianist André-Michel Schub at the Library of Congress on April 5, 1978.

Copland once described the Duo, one of his last compositions, as "a work of comparatively simple harmonic and melodic outline, direct in expression and meant to be grateful for the performer." The first movement, marked "Flowing," begins with a long soliloquy for the flute. The music quickens and turns playful as the pianist adds delicate passagework. The movement concludes with a return of the slower material from the beginning. Copland saw the second movement, marked "Poetic, somewhat mournful," as reflecting "a certain mood that I connect with myself—a rather sad and wistful mood, I suppose." The mostly spare, somewhat bluesy and dissonant music at the beginning and end frame a more diatonic central section. The quiet ending of the second movement is abruptly interrupted by the beginning of the third, which Copland described as "lively, bright and snappy."

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