Solo Pour Deux

Solo Pour Deux (1981) by Grisey, for clarinet and trombone, embodies the essentiality of the spectral compositional conception and is didactic in this sense.

As the title suggests, the two (monophonic) instruments do not create contrasts or contrapuntal melodic lines, but rather contribute to creating the sonority of this piece by working on each other's harmonics (typically the clarinet on those of the trombone, by necessity). There are two of them, but in most cases they create a single line, often overlapping, but sometimes one continues by reducing or expanding a note of the other.

In terms of compositional idea (but only in that), the piece is close to Giacinto Scelsi's 1966 Ko-Lho for flute and clarinet, which you can listen to here, especially the second movement, in which the two instruments, rather than dueting, interpenetrate.

The performers are Ernesto Molinari on clarinet and Uwe Dierksen on trombone.

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