Chris Reubens : Fantasy No2 for guitar and violin : DOz

Chris Reubens

Les Productions D’Oz : Score and separate parts 7, 4 and 2 pages respectively)

This is the second of three Fantasies that Belgian born Reubens has composed to date, the other two being simply for guitar. Apparently the piece initiates from improvisation and also includes improvisational ideas during the development of the piece, resulting in a work that has many emotional sides to it.

Set in ED Major as a Larghetto , it opens with a four bar guitar introduction, (the guitar incidentally with its 6^th string to C#)and a number changing time signatures, 5/4, 6/4, 3 /4, 4/4, and 2/4 all being present at some time. When the violin enters the guitar part starts to develop in difficulty whilst the violin plays the (mostly) single note melody, the style being modern but always tonal, there being a number of occasions where accidentals are common in the harmonies. At bar 24 an Andante takes over with a new theme, mostly but not always in 3 / 4 time. After a few bars the writing gets much more intensive with the guitarist in particular having quite a lot to do. After a fleshy tremolando chord from the guitar another, more rhythmic melody with occasional pizzicato from the violin leads to a tempo primo a varied version of the previous themes and everything dies down to the final C# chord.

There is a performance of this on YouTube, should you be interested any further, but the piece is pleasant and moderately difficult for both players and worthy of your attention.

Chris Dumigan