Helena Winkelman

Gemini - Concerto

This new double concerto for two violins and orchestra is dedicated to the most diverse aspects of togetherness in eleven miniatures. Humorous, thoroughly extra-musically motivated modes of relationship effortlessly lead the musical material into border areas of technique and expression.
Both soloists are assigned a percussionist as a second, who also moves with them through the space (of the staged piece). The choice of percussion instruments emphasizes the respective character of the very different solo violin parts.
The orchestra is sometimes a resonating space, sometimes a screen, sometimes a commentator and sometimes a motor.

The eleven miniatures form a traditional grand structure of three movements.
The first movement refers mainly to natural phenomena that are
after possible areas of tension between two solo voices as musically fruitful.
These include the vastness of the universe itself, magnetic fields, the mirror symmetries of quarks or double star systems.

The second movement is - as it is traditionally often the case - a romance and begins with a statement which, according to legend, is said to have been made between Diaghilev and Stravinsky after they had not seen each other for a while.
had seen. The other titles such as 'parallel parking' or '...in the eye of the beholder' require the listener to have some idiomatic connoisseurship to understand the humorous string strokes.

The last movement, with its allusions to hunting and warfare (see Battleships), is certainly the most sporty.
In 'horsing around' there is a great duo cadenza and then fragments of folk music from three countries (Finland, Moldavia and Switzerland) follow each other and overlap in a daring quodlibet - this too is a tribute to the soloists Patricia Kopatchinskaya and Pekka Kuusiisto.