A Curious Duet for 2 violins

November 4, 2011 at 03:23 PM · I am trying to find out the real composer of a piece of music I have. It is "A Curious Duet"- an amazing piece that is played with 2 violinists standing opposite each other with the music on a table. One reads it one way up, the other reads it upside down. The piece is attributed to Mestrino, but a student has just showed me a copy they have which is in a book of Mozart duos! Does anyone have any information that could solve this puzzle for me? Thanks!

Replies (8)

Tim KRugman

November 4, 2011 at 03:33 PM · It can be found in Samuel Applebaum's, Beautifull Music for Two Violins. It is listed as Table Music for Two by Mozart.

Martin Butler

November 4, 2011 at 08:44 PM · If it was by Mozart wouldn't it have a K number?

Annette Brower

November 5, 2011 at 05:33 AM · All the publications of this piece that I have seen have credited Mozart as the composer.

Martin Butler

November 5, 2011 at 12:50 PM · Nicola Mestrino (1748–1789)—Spiegelkanon No. 1 (attrib. to Mozart) (publ. 1928)

“A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!” is a legendary palindrome (producing the same sentence when read backward as it does forward), published by Lee Mercer in 1948. But there is disagreement as to whether Mercer is the actual author, and this argument resembles the debate concerning the Spiegelkanon No. 1, which was attributed to Mozart when it was first published in 1928. Most Mozart scholars scoff at the notion; it is more likely to be the work of a once-celebrated violinist, Nicola Mestrino, who worked with Joseph Haydn in the service of Prince Esterházy.

Regardless of the true authorship, the “Playful Canon” is a charming piece structured as an “inverted” palindrome: one player reads the music from the top-left corner, working his way down the page, while the other player reads his copy of the music upside-down, starting at his top-left corner, which is the bottom-right corner for the first player. If the sheet of music is laid on a flat surface such as a table or desk, the two players can read this “mirror canon” simultaneously from opposite sides, which has led to the occasional nickname “table music.”

Ellie Withnall

November 5, 2011 at 07:32 PM · Sounds like fun, where would I find a copy of the score?

Rosemary Alter

November 5, 2011 at 08:20 PM · Oh! The tabletop duet! I've seen that one, and it was by Mozart.

Hilary Bruer

November 6, 2011 at 05:02 AM · Thanks for all of these comments. Martin- from what you say here, it is perhaps seen as officially in doubt, despite most people thinking it is Mozart. Perhaps I will never get a totally indisputable answer then!