The London Double Bass Sound Gary Kahr

Although at first we might wonder at the rationale for pairing these two pieces–a double bass concerto and a sinfonia concertante by a (not very well liked) colleague of Mozart and Haydn–on closer inspection we realize that the connection derives from the fact that both pieces were premiered by the same double bass virtuoso. Leopold Kozeluch’s Sinfonia Concertante is scored for the unique combination of mandolin, trumpet, double bass, and piano.

This album hums and growls, it whispers very delicately and causes a pleasant feeling again and again. It is the warm, deep and full tone of the double bass that has taken hold of the young Viennese soloist Dominik Wagner. This is already the fourth album he is releasing on the label Berlin Classics. As on the three previous albums, he has placed the double bass at the center, and yet everything is different on the new album "Double Bass Rhapsody". Here, the double bass is heard exclusively as a solo instrument, in a quartet and even in a sextet. For this, Dominik Wagner has enlisted the best colleagues he can imagine: Christoph Wimmer and Herbert Mayr, both principal double bassists of the Vienna Philharmonic, who share with him an authentic connection to the Viennese style. And José Trigo, deputy principal double bass of the BR Symphony Orchestra, who, like Dominik Wagner, also studied with Professor Dorin Marc. "In order to bring out the special features of the double bass, there is no need for any other instrument" explains Dominik Wagner.

Much of the solo literature for double bass requires the instrument to change its tuning from its standard orchestral arrangement, raising the pitch of each string by a whole step (if not more) in an attempt to increase its clarity, projection, nimbleness. This Neos album, Music for Double Bass with German bassist Frank Reinecke, steers away from works that employ scordatura in favor of those that use the typical orchestral tuning on the bass. The idea: to focus on and explore the depth and resonance for which the instrument was constructed.

These "double bass quartets" of Franz Anton Hoffmeister, a Viennese composer and publisher well known to both Mozart and Beethoven, are not written simply for one member each of the string family from violin to double bass; the bass is explicitly conceived of as a replacement for the first violin. That might seem an awkward order, but the charm of the music resides in the variety of elegant solutions Hoffmeister finds for the problems this configuration causes.

Christine Hoock is a versatile virtuoso. She can be heard in the most varied constellations in classical music, world music and jazz. Concert tours have taken her all around the world. Today, Christine Hoock is Professor of Double Bass at the Mozarteum University Salzburg. She plays an English instrument by William Tarr built in 1848.