Duett for trombone and double bass

Duett for trombone and double bass is a musical work by the English composer Edward Elgar.

The duet was composed as wedding gift to Frank Weaver, a brother of Helen Weaver^[1] to whom the composer had been engaged some four years earlier,^[2] and presented to him on 1 August 1887 when he married Fannie Jones.^[3] Weaver was about a year older than Elgar;^[4] he was a shoemaker and an amateur double bass player, and Elgar played the trombone.^[5] Frank and Helen Weaver were among the children of William Weaver, a shoe merchant whose shop was in Worcester High Street, opposite Elgar's father's music shop.^[6]

The manuscript was inherited by one of Frank Weaver's sons, and was eventually published by Rodney Slatford (Yorke Edition) in 1970.^[7]

Description

The duet is an Allegretto of length 49 bars. It is in the form of a fugue in which the subject is first played by the double bass then imitated by the trombone a fourth higher.