Heinrich Anton Hoffmann (1770-1842) was chamber musician at the Court of the Prince-Elector, the Archbishop of Mainz, and later violinist at the Stadttheater in Frankfurt. From 1801 until 1819, he rose from the rank of Corepetitor and Concert Master to Vice Director of Music and finally Director of Music and Co-director of Theatre. In 1821, Hoffmann took the titles of Vice Music Director and First Violinist. He retired in 1835. Among Hoffmann’s published works are six String Quartets, two Violin Concertos, a Concertante for two Violins, 12 Lieder with piano accompaniment and Duos for Violin and Violoncello which constitute one of the main focuses of his oeuvre. Hoffmann’s compositions all date from between around 1800 and 1832 and thus belong stylistically to the high Classical and early Romantic periods. Indeed, their position in the transition from one epoch to the next often gives the works a special individuality and tension. Further tension is created by the fact that Hoffmann’s earlier pieces are influenced by Viennese Classicism, especially Mozart and Beethoven, whereas the middle and late compositions increa-singly adopt and rework features of the French violin school around Pierre Rode (1774–1830).

The concertant or concertato epithet was used especially in the Classical and early Romantic periods and even more popular in France than in the German-speaking world. In the duets the concertato element manifests itself in the way the two instruments alternate, and thus ‘compete’ with each other, in solo passages and in the presentation of the theme. In Hoffmann’s works this competition can reach a remarkably high level, with technical difficulties that require a considerable degree of virtuosity: double stopping, bariolage, una corda playing and broken octave sequences, the last of these most clearly betraying the influence of the French violin school.