Giovanni Bottesini - Double Bass Concertos

Boguslaw Furtok and Johannes Stahle (double bass) with the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt

I WASN'T really sure what to expect from a CD of compositions for the double bass.

Double bass players are (generally) those tall blokes at the back of the string section with an over-sized violin resting over their shoulder, who have been known to indulge in a card game or two during a break in rehearsals.

And let's face it, the double bass isn't the sexiest of instruments. It always appears slow and ponderous, the backbone of the orchestral repertoire.

As one frustrated musician says in the programme notes: After us, all that comes is the kettledrum.

I'm glad to be proved wrong because, boy, the fingers of these musicians, Furtok and Stahle, can fly.

If you find that hard to believe, fast-forward to track six on this CPO recording, the allegro finale of the Concerto in B minor. Nigel Kennedy would have a problem keeping up, and his fingers have less distance to travel than on the neck of one of these stringed monsters.

The music is lively, harmonious, delicate and robust in equal measures. The fact you can have a Gran Duo Passione Amorosa - and for not one but TWO double basses says it all.

Giovanni Bottesini is described as "first and foremost a musician and only secondarily as a double bassist".

Born in Crema in 1821, he apparently took up the double bass because the only scholarships going for the Milan Conservatory were for that and the bassoon.

One critic described Bottesini as having 100 nightingales in his instrument listening to this recording you can understand how that could be true. But Bottesini was also a composer and conductor. His works for the double bass are very popular with the 'third-chair' musicians. They certainly deserve a wider audience.

CPO

999 665-2