Music for bowed string instruments consists mostly of music composed by Malcolm Goldstein (b. 1936) between 2018 and 2019 while living in Montreal, Québec.

The impulse to compose this series came from Goldstein’s experience as a teacher and performer of Bela Bartok’s 44 Duos for Two Violins (1931). Whereas Bartok’s series features a clear progression to the pieces, gradually increasing in technical and musical complexity from beginning to end, music for bowed string instruments has no such sequence.

The compositions do not build toward a particular way of playing or specific kind of technical virtuosity. Even so, Goldstein envisions these pieces to be used as both teaching material for improvisation as well as concert pieces.

Each of the eleven pieces defines a narrow set of parameters - Goldstein uses the term “structured improvisation composition” to describe this kind of piece.

He explains that concept as “improvisation as a process of discovery enacted within the structures of the particular performance activities specified for each piece.”

In other words, the musicians are not free to play anything at all, but they are free to explore everything within the constraints laid out in the score.