Customer Reviews

Bottesini: Gran Duo Concertante

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It is very rare to hear the f# minor concerto at all. This is one of only 2 recordings that I can recommend. B. Furtok is the other. Stay away from Badila's recording unless all you want to hear is fast playing with no true Bottesini interpretation. This CD and the Furtok's are great performances of this fantastic concerto. In my opinion, one of the best bass concertos of all. Much better than the other Bottesini works.

The duetto with clarinet is starting to be seen on more and more recordings. Nice little piece-very well played here from both soloists. The string piece (non-solo bass) isn't that great. Vol. 3 has much better non-bass works. The other pieces are great and the orchestra provides a very good accompaniment. Louder bass is always a concern of mine on these Martin recordings.

Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) has retained a toehold in the repertoire for his virtuoso music for double-bass, whereas his other music (operas etc) has virtually disappeared. I mention this because this disc makes it abundantly clear that Bottesini's music would hardly have survived at all were it not for the scarcity of romantic double bass music in general. Musically, the works featured on the disc at hand have little to no musical merit whatsoever, being usually painfully dull and banal, derivative, uninspired and riddled with clichés. Harsh words, and I admit that not everyone seems to agree, given that ASV's series ran to four volumes and that this disc has later been reissued by Naxos. Maybe those who put higher value on Bottesini may direct me to something of his that is more worthwhile? Some of the tricks and quirks and technical properties would hold some interest for double bass players or specialists, I imagine, but that's about it.

As to influences, there is definitely something of the opera of the time about Bottesini's music. Thus the Gran Duo Concertante (an arrangement, byt the way, by his contemporary Sivori Bottesini's concerto for two double basses. opens with a very operatic, heroic and thoroughly dull march - and spirals downwards from there. It is not helped by Thomas Martin's playing which is, though technically impressive, a little too weak-toned and with too little virtuoso swagger about it. Maybe my negative opinion partially due to my relatively firm conviction that the double bass, as the bassoon, trumpet and tuba, doesn't lend itself very well to a solo role even if creates wonderful textures in ensemble (or orchestral) music; but then again that conviction would have been reached exactly on the evidence of discs (or works) like this one.

The Andante sostenuto is a predictable but effective enough interlude. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to listen to the vacuous Duetto (with Emma Johnson) more than once, however. The Gran Concerto, on the other hand, brushes up against some higher levels of invention at times; the work is slightly more musically complex than its partners on the disc, but is still generally direct and simple, accessible and tuneful. But despite some rather fine passages the overall impression is on the negative side. While Bottesini sounds like as if he is about to say something at certain points, he never does, and the whole work is a pretty anonymous affair. Overall, then, even though performances are certainly more than adequate (despite some minor nitpicks mentioned above), I cannot recommend this disc to anyone but ardent specialists.