[1] The Gran Duo Concertante is in three main sections performed without a break and usually lasts around 15 minutes if played up to tempo, but this estimate can vary greatly due to the artists' interpretation of the music.
Double concertos were generally composed for different instruments, and Bottesini soon adapted the piece as a duo with violin which he performed in Italy with the violinist Luigi Arditi in the mid-1840s.
The pair then moved to Havana, Cuba and performed the Gran Duo many times in the Americas, sometimes using the titles “La Fiesta de los Gitanos” or “The Feast of the Bohemians”.
In the 1850s Camillo Sivori, the disciple of Niccolò Paganini, performed the piece with Bottesini many times in London and other European cities and is sometimes wrongly credited with making the arrangement.
[2] Bottesini performed the Grand Duo throughout his life with many of the world’s greatest violinists, including not only Arditi, Sivori and Wieniawski, but also Jean-Delphin Alard, Henri Vieuxtemps, Prosper Sainton, Émile Sauret, Antonio Bazzini, Achille Simonetti and many others.