The Duet-Concertino, Richard Strauss' last completed composition, is one of those works from his final years—the Oboe Concerto (1945) and the two Sonatinas for Winds (1943 and 1945) are others—in which he sets aside the large orchestras and big Romantic gestures that characterized most of his music in favor of a more restrained, almost neo-classical style and a more transparent orchestral sound. Dedicated to the composer's friend Hugo Burghauser, one-time bassoonist of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Duet-Concertino was completed late in 1947. It was written for the small orchestra of Radio Svizzera Italiana (the Italian-Swiss Radio in Lugano, Switzerland), which gave the work its first performance, under the direction of Otmar Nussio, in Lugano on April 4, 1948.

Strauss apparently wrote the Duet-Concertino with extramusical associations in mind. He told conductor Clemens Krauss that the work had a connection with Hans Christian Andersen's story The Swineherd, in which a prince (here, the bassoon) puts himself into position to woo a princess (the clarinet) by taking the job of a swineherd at her father's palace. But he also told his bassoonist friend Burghauser of a different scenario in which a dancing princess (the clarinet) is alarmed by the strange cavorting of a bear (the bassoon); when she finally dances with the bear, it is transformed into a prince.

Whatever the story, the Duet-Concertino is a melodic and genial work in three movements. The opening Allegro moderato begins with a sweet, nostalgic, almost Mozartian} tune. The clarinet takes the lead at first, but when the music gains momentum, clarinet and bassoon trade phrases. Quiet tremolos lead into the gentle Andante, which begins with a bassoon soliloquy. The clarinet then joins in, and the two soloists engage in a tentative dialogue. The third movement, a Rondo marked Allegro ma non troppo, is longer than the first two combined. An amiable, swinging main theme is the basis of the movement, which also contains several decorous contrasting episodes.

© All Music Guide