Double Canon "Raoul Dufy in Memoriam"

Although it is a memorial piece for the painter Raoul Dufy, who had died on 23 March 1953, the Double Canon is not a personal tribute, for the two men had never met. The work originated as a duet for flute and clarinet, composed in Venice in September 1959 as a souvenir piece in response to a request for an autograph (White 1979, 510). Later expanded for string quartet, it had its first performance at a Stravinsky festival in New York, either on 20 December 1959 (White 1979, 509), or else on 10 January 1960 in a concert also featuring the premiere of the Movements for piano and orchestra (Mason 1960, 3).