Three Duets

Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) is today best known for his concertos for strings, in which genre he was a pioneer, and for his music with solo trumpet. In his own day, however, he was equally productive as a composer for small-scale ensembles, which is to say primarily of sonatas. A little-known manuscript in the British Library contains three single-movement duets for two violins by him that on one hand look back to the long tradition in Italy of the didactic duet, which originated in the Renaissance, and on the other hand prefigure the full-length sonatas for two treble instruments without bass written by Vivaldi, Tessarini, Telemann, Leclair, Boismortier and many others.