By CURTIS MACOMBER

On December 4 I'll be giving my first recital at Juilliard since I was a violin student here (some 30 years ago, I hate to admit). I've been a faculty member for the past eight years, but haven't found what I thought was the appropriate initiative for creating a program until now.

For the past several years, my close friend and colleague Norman Fischer and I have been investigating the relatively sparse repertoire for violin and cello, and we're planning an ongoing series of concerts and recordings in order to bring more attention to that genre.

Why have composers taken up this combination only relatively recently? With the increase in instrumental proficiency and agility over the last century, composers seem to have become more attracted to the expressive and technical possibilities the violin-cello duo offers. Ever since Kodaly and Ravel blazed a trail with such compelling examples, the field has opened up dramatically and consistently. The folk element seems to figure strongly in Kodaly's Duo, as it does in works by Erwin Schulhoff, Nikos Skalkotas, and others. More weighty contributions have been made by Roger Sessions and Ralph Shapey.

Violinist and chamber music faculty member Curtis Macomber. (Photo by Christian Steiner )

Individual parts in this music tend towards the virtuosic. Four-part harmony, of course, requires double-stops in both instruments. Switches from primary voice to supporting role and back are often sudden (as in the Ravel Sonata's last movement). Timbral shifts and alternations between arco and pizzicato are likewise challenging. (Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, the violinist who premiered the Ravel, complained that the soloists were expected to play the flute on the violin and the drum on the cello.)

On the other hand, music for only two players of such similar instruments allows for a special intimacy and interaction. When George Rochberg wrote his Duo Concertante, he emphasized a conversational quality: "I wanted [the instruments] to be able to 'talk' to each other as equals; and, if occasion warranted, even to 'talk back.'" Timing and phrasing can become more spontaneous with fewer players.

Besides the Rochberg and Ravel Duos, this concert will include works by Jacob Druckman (a longtime Juilliard faculty member), William Bolcom, and a world premiere by Juilliard faculty member Christopher Theofanidis. This work, commissioned by The Juilliard School with support from the trust of Francis Goelet, is titled The World Is Aflame.

I first met Chris when I performed his 1995 string quartet Ariel Ascending. Since then he has been the recipient of the Masterprize, the Rome Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Our new duo is a musical response to the agitation and violence of the current world climate. Chris writes: "Although I mostly shy away from writing pieces with political and social implications, it has been difficult in our current turbulent environment for such things not to make their way into my music on many levels. Maybe unsurprisingly, the artistic expressions that have struck me the most in this regard have been works with a more intimate expression; that is, those works which tried not to match horrors and atrocities with an enormous, seemingly commensurate scale, but rather the opposite—those which modestly put forward something quite human on a scale which is accessible."

Curtis Macomber, violin Norman Fischer, cello Morse Hall Monday, Dec. 4, 6 p.m. Free tickets available Nov. 21 in the Juilliard Box Office. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

I asked Chris if he felt there were any endemic challenges in writing violin-cello duos. "Although I suppose one could look at it as challenging," he said, "I go with what the strong points of the instruments are. They are, of course, such great soloistic instruments. But one of the neat things I like is the possibility for registral space, which is not always the case in a duo—the opportunity to create textures and densities which come with that distance. I guess I don't really see any negatives."

Chris has devoted this commission to the creation of a work that reacts to current political and social crises. I asked him if this was purely coincidental, or if the sound of strings brings out these feelings in him. He mentioned the ability of strings to sustain sound in an almost "labored" way, and he uses that quality in this piece to communicate struggle and conflict.

Fortunately, composers continue to be drawn to the combination of our two instruments, and we look forward to delving into this world for many years to come.

Violinist Curtis Macomber is a member of the chamber music faculty.