This attractive sampler of the music of Giovanni Bottesini, famous
as a virtuoso of the double-bass and also a competent composer
and successful conductor - he conducted the Cairo premiere of
Aida in 1871 - was originally issued as ASV DCA 563. On
ASV it was volume one of a series of four – perhaps the three
other discs will also be reissued on Naxos?
Bottesini was one
of those Italian musicians who found themselves labelled - or
more likely invented the label as a marketing device? - “the
Paganini of [their instrument]”. So just as, for example, Cesare
Ciardi was referred to as “the Paganini of the flute” and Antonino
Pasculli as “the Paganini of the oboe”, so Bottesini was known
as “the Paganini of the double-bass”. Some of the music he wrote
to show off his technique and his technical innovations is of
little enduring interest, save to those who have a specialist
concern with it. But, for the most part, the music on this present
CD, while hardly of major importance, has a wider appeal.
There is often an
air of the opera about a good deal of Bottesini’s music; aside
from his work as a conductor in the theatre, he wrote some thirteen
operas, the most successful being Ero e Leandro premiered
in Turin in 1879. The Gran Duo opens with a heroic march
which would not be out of place in the opera house and more
than a few of its melodies are reminiscent of the same environment.
What we hear here is not Bottesini’s original conception of
the work – which was as a concerto for orchestra and two double-basses.
Instead we hear a version prepared by the violinist Camillo
Sivori (1815-1894), with whom Bottesini sometimes toured. In
it one of the double-bass parts was rewritten for violin – and
much enlarged – by Sivori, so that the two could play the concerto
in concert. There are some strikingly high notes required of
the bassist, as well as some testing pianissimos. Thomas Martin
meets the demands pretty well, though here, and elsewhere on
the disc, one would have liked to hear some slightly more assertive
playing, some greater sense of instrumental display. Martin
seems sometimes rather too reticent (if accomplished) a soloist
fully to capture the flavour of Bottesini’s bravura music. Garcia
plays with a rather greater sense of showmanship, perhaps better
suited to the spirit of the music.
The Andante sostenuto
for strings is an impassioned piece which sounds rather
like an operatic intermezzo and would pass muster on the modern
concert platform as part of a programme by a good chamber orchestra
- and it is certainly played by one here. In the Duetto for
Clarinet and Double-Bass Emma Johnson and Thomas Martin exchange
phrases with an attractive sense of dialogue and though no great
depths are plumbed, this makes for pleasant, relaxed listening.
The Gran Concerto
which closes the disc is in three movements and is a rather
more searching work. The writing for double-bass here goes beyond
any sense of simple showmanship, however impressive. There is
more musical substance and complexity here, the musical structures
are more elaborate and the harmonies sometimes a little unexpected.
Yet at the heart of the concerto, as at the heart of most of the
music by Bottesini which I have heard, there is an essential simplicity,
a kind of directness of feeling, a sense of social conversation,
which while it may not make for music of great profundity certainly
led Bottesini to the composition of music which is tuneful, accessible
and consistently pleasant. I, for one, hope that Naxos will
reissue the other three volumes in Thomas Martin’s Bottesini
series. Incidentally, Thomas Martin’s website
is well worth visiting if you want to learn more of Bottesini’s
remarkable life.
Glyn Pursglove