Violin / Cello Duet Music
I'm looking for some easy- or medium-difficulty violin & cello duets. Although I've located a number of duets on the internet, generally a level of difficulty isn't stated.
Does anyone have any such pieces to recommend? If you do, please also indicate whether you feel the difficulty is easy or medium.
Thanks
Replies (28)
Fiorillo's op.31 comes to mind...I'd rate that Moderate going on difficult. I believe Hubert Leonard and Servais collaborated on a few duets...although those would be much more difficult to locate...also moderate to difficult. Also I'm sure there are a few books dedicated to arrangements for the two instruments out there somewhere. Good luck!
Hi, if you're still looking, there are easy to middling duets by Johann Albrechtsberger (1736-1809) - Six Duets (International Music Company). They're quite nice. Toni
There are some Beethoven Duos for cello and violin. They are easy and very classical pd.
ravel?
The Ravel is very difficult for the cellist - not so much for the violinist, so it depends...
Martinu duos, Kodaly, Handel-Halvorsen, Beethoven...
i like kodaly too isnt that hard tho
Ravel is much more challenging, especially for rhythmic purposes
There's a Haydn (Michael?) duo as well, that's not really sight-readable, but also not extremely difficult.
There are some duos by Gliere that aren't too difficult. Also some Bach arrangements. Both available from International.
I'm hoping to get together with two cellists (separately, but wouldn't violin and two cellos be an interesting arrangement??) and wondered if anyone had suggestions for more duets - again easy to intermediate, as originally requested here in 2005!
Anyone know what the beethoven suggestion might refer to?
This site has a very comprehensive listing of sheet music, broken down by instrument and ensemble (although their prices seem somewhat high). It's a good resource for finding out what's available in a particular combination of instruments.
Bach's inventionen for keyboard 1 and 8 are not difficult; a bit of a jump to a higher note for the cello in one spot. Some of the Praeludiums from "Das Wohltemperierte Klavier" are also suitable for cello/violin: nr 11 and 14.
Beethoven duets are originally for clarinet and bassoon, but do not need to be transposed.
Someone told me that the Bartok duets for 2 violins are available in an arrangement for violin an cello.
The cello book "A tune a day" if I remember well the title has many very very very easy ones. (starts easier than twinkle and goes slightly harder) Perhpas there are more advanced books too in "A tune a day". Actually, it is made so that the cello teacher can accompany the student. It is easilly transposable (by sight) for a violinist. (just have to play the notes one or more octaves higher when you don't have them as low on your violin). Note that if you have the "A tune a day" violin book, You'll have the same exact tunes that those in the cello book. They will slready be written for the violin. So if you have the cello and violin book, you don't even have to adapt anything!!
Good luck!
Anne-Marie
If you google for "sheet music violin cello" you'll find a number useful sites. Most of their offerings aren't free, but I've downloaded some free duets from this URL:
http://www.8notes.com/violin-cello_duet/
There's a good sheet music search engine at http://www.looksheetmusic.com - it will search multiple sites and gets lots of hits.
One of the best site for classical music downloads is www.virtualsheetmusic.com
It has four skill levels ; very easy, easy, medium, and high
For about $38 per annum you can download from a choice of thousands of sheet music with MP3 and Midi. And they expand their catalogue continuously.
There are also free downloads.
The website will be worth your while.
You could try browsing this particular page of our old friend IMSLP:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Duets.
For example I quickly spotted a set of 6 duets for violin and cello by Pleyel.
I also aware of Kodaly's Duo Op 7 for Violin and Cello - but Kodaly is unfortunately not available on IMSLP for copyright reasons (he died in 1967).
Been a bit tied up and unable to correspond - little catch up!
Bill: This site has a very comprehensive listing of sheet music, broken down by instrument and ensemble (although their prices seem somewhat high). It's a good resource for finding out what's available in a particular combination of instruments.
www.frankmusiccompany.com/catalog/index.php
This is terrific - I wish I had found it before. What a list of music! (And then you can always look it up on IMLSP ;) , or use Trevor's link of course...)
Thanks for all the ideas - I was a member member of sheet music.com for a while - but then I discovered that they transposed the stuff as they saw fit - and did not even tell you what the original key was. And they had that pretense that the music was 'copyright' to them. Fancy having copyright to Bach's A minor...
Hendrik - thanks for the tip on the beethoven - they are available on IMLSP. It looks like the original had the clarinet C why did it change to Bf?
"they transposed the stuff as they saw fit - and did not even tell you what the original key was. And they had that pretense that the music was 'copyright' to them. Fancy having copyright to Bach's A minor... "
Maybe you could get a copyright on the Bach concerto by transposing it to A flat minor. It would be so easy--all you would have to do is write in 7 flats at the beginning of each line and substitute a natural sign for all the sharp signs in front of f's and g's and maybe tinker a little with a few more accidentals. After all, A minor is such a boring key. And the open e pedal in measures 27 ff. of the 3rd movement would actually present something of a challenge if you had to play e flat instead of being able to fall back on the open e. There's only one problem--the open g in measure 15 of the 2nd movement. But maybe you could substitute the g flat on the d string. Or you could tune your g down a half step. (But it would be cheating to tune the other strings down.)
If you're looking for "gig music," Last Resort has a couple of books of classics transposed for violin and cello (as well as other combinations). The stuff is not difficult, but it is not trivial either. The violin has most of the melodies.
Fritz and Hugo Kreisler's transcription of Danny Boy. "Farewell to Cucullain" is a piano trio that works as well as a violin - cello duet.
Andy
BIll - you're onto something! We could amass the largest copyright classical collection in the world! And the most amazing thing would be that noone would want to play it :)
Sounds like a work of art to me....
Andrew - thats a great idea on the 'gig' music. I've seen the 'music for two/three etc' series (which are not, by the way interchangeable) but was not aware of the ones you suggest.
www.fedorastrings.com sells sheet music for violin and cello duo which is exactly the standard you are looking for.
Try googling for "violin cello duet". Sites like 8notes.com have a few pieces you can download for free.
Try googling for "violin cello duet". Sites like 8notes.com have a few pieces you can download for free.
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September 11, 2005 at 10:14 PM · Hi,
www.virtualsheetmusic.com has a few arrangements for violin and cello. They also list by difficulty and have some at the easy/medium level.
You can also preview a lot of their music and listen to a midi file.
Hope this helps!
Judy