Bass Solo

Peter Kooij is one of the leading bass singers in the early music scene, which becomes even clearer on his new CD Die stille Nacht (The silent night) with Passion cantatas for solo bass by Telemann. His agile voice, the simple, yet rich timbre, the well-dosed expressive power: All of this shows Kooijs elegant musicality and makes him an ideal baroque singer, especially for the atmospheric cantatas by Telemann. The Dutch bass, Peter Kooij, started his musical career at the age of six as a choirboy and sang many solo soprano parts in concerts and on records.

Peter Kooij is one of the leading bass singers in the early music scene, which becomes even clearer on his new CD Die stille Nacht (The silent night) with Passion cantatas for solo bass by Telemann. His agile voice, the simple, yet rich timbre, the well-dosed expressive power: All of this shows Kooijs elegant musicality and makes him an ideal baroque singer, especially for the atmospheric cantatas by Telemann. The Dutch bass, Peter Kooij, started his musical career at the age of six as a choirboy and sang many solo soprano parts in concerts and on records.

This second and last volume completes two different sets of string quartets: the four so-called Solo Quartets by Franz Anton Hoffmeister and Gioachino Rossini’s six String Sonatas (or Sonate a quattro). Both sets differ from the ‘normal’ configuration in that they allow a double bass to take part, albeit in different roles. Rossini, who composed his sonatas at the age of 12 (!), left out the viola and gave the double bass a more or less conventional bass role – apart from the occasional virtuosic outburst. The sonatas were first published in an arrangement for traditional string quartet and are often heard performed by string orchestras.

Playing the double bass as a solo instrument requires a high level of technical skill on the part of the player. At the time of the beginning of the Viennese Classical period, there were several such outstanding double bass players in Vienna and nearby Bratislava, and so the most important solo works for this instrument were written there. The "Viennese double bass" had a special feature: it had five strings instead of the usual four and was played with frets. In addition, there was a special tuning of the strings that facilitated solo playing in the higher registers. The Canadian double bassist David Sinclair is one of the few specialists for the Viennese bass worldwide and teaches historical double bass at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. On his album "Wiener Stimmung", David Sinclair presents this extraordinary instrument with concertos and chamber music by composers such as Anton Zimmermann, Johannes Sperger, Karl Kohaut, Andreas Lidl and Franz Xaver Hammer as well as Joseph Haydn, congenially accompanied by fellow lecturers at the Schola Cantorum.

Los Angeles-based saxophonist Bob Reynolds is a Grammy-winning member of the instrumental group Snarky Puppy, an award-winning composer, and a prolific recording artist with ten top-selling solo albums to his credit. Widely known for his work with both Snarky and John Mayer, he has been a featured soloist with instrumentalists like Larry Carlton, Chris Botti, and Jeff Lorber and worked with a host of pop artists including Michael Bublé, Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, The 1975, and USHER.

'Those who need all of Purcell's songs at their fingertips should invest in Hyperion's three-disk survey of secular songs, with outstanding performances by Barbara Bonney, Rogers Covey-Crump and James Bowman' (The New York Times)
'A project that will probably have no real competiton for years to come; I recommend it heartily' (Fanfare, USA)
'Those who need all of Purcell's songs at their fingertips should invest in Hyperion's three-disk survey of secular songs, with outstanding performances by Barbara Bonney, Rogers Covey-Crump and James Bowman' (The New York Times)

The eclectic, even eccentric musical tastes of German, Netherlands- based flute master Mark Alban Lotz may be attributed to his personal history. He grew up in Thailand, Germany, and Uganda, while studying jazz, contemporary music, and Indian bansuri flute playing in Amsterdam, New York, and Los Angeles. This globe-trotting biography is reflected in his flute solo performances of contemporary composed music and associative improvisations, all recorded in one go with no overdubs or sound processing.