Double Bass Concerto

Yorke Edition-Born in Oxford in 1917 Francis Baines was a well-known and much respected professional double bass player. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Claude Hobday where he later taught. Something of an eccentric he immersed himself in early music at a time when few people were taking it seriously. He owned a beautiful Amati bass that he had restored as a violone which it probably was originally and he was a regular fixture as a principal player in a number of orchestras and ensembles that dedicated themselves to period performing including those directed by Denys Darlow with whom he broadcast and recorded frequently.Besides playing the doublebass Francis Baines was an exponent of the treble viol and led the Jaye Consort of Viols which he founded. He also played several kinds of bagpipe and the hurdy-gurdy. As a composer he dabbled in many styles one of his greatest claims to fame being that of writing for the popular Hoffnung concerts in the 1960s. He was the author of a number of papers about the history of the double bass sometimes arriving at scholarly conclusions that were colourful if not always entirely accurate. He discovered the Giovannino del Violone sonatas subsequently published by Yorke Edition although today it is thought that they were probably not written for a 16' pitch instrument at all. His edition of the Capuzzi double bass concerto published by Boosey & Hawkes was for many years one of the few solo works available for the instrument. This however he largely re-composed because he thought it could be improved: towards the end of his life he confessed that with hindsight he probably should have treated it differently.Grounds was written in 1969 as a sort of party piece and was given to Yorke Edition in support of a drive to enlarge the repertoire for the instrument in a wide variety of styles. It was set on the syllabus of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music for many years.Francis Baines died

It was a chance visit to a second hand bookshop in Nottingham that set me on the trail of Rossini's now well-known Duetto for cello and double bass. But the story begins earlier than that. In the 1960s I was studying the double bass at the Royal College of Music with Adrian Beers who was at that time principal of the English Chamber Orchestra on the front desk of the Philharmonia Orchestra and a member of the Melos Ensemble of London (then one of the leading ensembles of the world). I was working on the 'Dragonetti Concerto' as most young players do and I wanted to find out a bit about it. My teacher said he thought the autograph manuscript might be in the British Library which was all the encouragement I needed to secure a pass to the Reading Room so I could go and see for myself. There sure enough I found a large collection of Dragonetti's autograph manuscripts together with other bound volumes relating to his life. The papers had been lovingly collated and annotated by Vincent Novello one of Dragonetti's closest friends then deposited in the library before his departure to Italy in 1848 two years after Dragonetti's death. One of the volumes included a lot of letters about various engagements and music festivals copies of orders for strings Dragonetti wanted from Italy details about paintings he wanted to buy and numerous invitations to private functions. The manuscript of the 'Dragonetti Concerto' of course wasn't among the papers we now know it to have been written by Edouard Nanny a century or so later. One name that came up regularly in the documents was that of Sir George Smart. Smart had been a violinist in Salomon's orchestra and had played for Haydn at his London concerts in the 1790s. As a child he had learnt much about music from his father who had in turn been present at many of Handel's rehearsals when he was preparing some of his major works for the first time. Smart was also a fine keyboard player becoming organist of the Chapel Royal in 1822. As a conductor

New Technique for the Double Bass part 5- Bass player François Rabbath born in 1931 in Aleppo is a real character in the world of music. He settled in Paris in 1955 where he played with the stars (Barbara Aznavour…) while continuing as a classical instrumentalist. Throughout the four preceding volumes Rabbath’s Nouvelle technique de la contrebasse presented in a four-language version (French English German and Spanish) endeavours to free the pupil from the shackles of traditional teaching. Always guided by the same conviction -that there is no need to torture one’s body to become an instrumentalist - Rabbath rounds off his educational epic with this fifth book which will offer great musical pleasure to the trainee bass player who can take pride in having overcome the technical difficulties covered in the first four books. This collection includes real concert pieces - works of great charm such as the nostalgic Cri de Venise for double bass and piano and the Troisième Concerto with its enveloping lyricism as well as short pieces such as Souviens-tu des douze peupliers and the irresistible Mama Bahija for bass drum and organ.

Complete Method For The Double Bass - Part 1 is the first of a series of two created by Edouard Nanny a French Double-Bass player teacher and composer. Conceived as a way to acquire a correct technique and a good sonority the Complete Method For The Four- And Five-Stringed Double Bass - Part 1 is perfect for beginners and intermediate beginners. Including scales exercises and small studies this first volume is completed with a second part for intermediate players. Edouard Nanny(1872-1942) had internal recognition as a composer during his lifetime and composed two concerti andadditional methods such as Twenty Virtuoso Studies among others.

SOLO TUNING See RM722 for Orchestral Tuning The 'Dragonetti Concerto' was first published in 1925 by Alphonse Leduc in Paris as No.23 of Edouard Nanny's 'Les Classiques de la Contrebasse'. For many years no one questioned its authenticity, but as more research into Dragonetti's original works for double bass was made, concerns began to arise. Many of Dragonetti manuscripts survive in the British Library, thanks to Vincent Novello who donated them in 1849, three years after Dragonetti's death and on Novello's retirement to Italy, but there is no original manuscript for this work. As bassists began to edit and perform a wide range of Dragonetti's works it became clear that this concerto bore little resemblance to any of his other pieces. The work does, however, have many similarities to Nanny's Concerto for double bass, also to his other solo works and even studies from his Method. Eventually most people came to the conclusion that this work is not an original work by the great Venetian bassist but is by Edouard Nanny, and in the style of the late 18th-century. Having said that, this is still a charming and evocative work which has much player and audience appeal and is very easy on the ears. Many of the challenges for the soloist are technical and, almost a century after its first publication, it is still as popular as ever. Published in 1925, the first movement was performed at London's Wigmore Hall on 15 April the following year by Victor Watson (double bass) and Sidney Crooke (piano), and was described a 'Contrabass Concerto by Dragonetti-Nanny. ERRATA: Piano part: page 8 (1st movement), bar 87 - final chord of bar in right hand should be D/E/G# - a dominant 7th chord in A major Edouard Nanny was an important French double bassist and teacher, also composing and transcribing many works for double bass. He was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 24 March 1872 and he studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Professor Verrimst, also teaching there from 1920-1940. He performed often as a soloist, also working as an orchestral bassist with many orchestras such as the Paris Symphony Orchestra, Concerts Lamoureux and the Orchestra de l'Opera Comique, and in 1901 he founded the Henry Casadeus Society of Old Instruments, chaired by Camille Saint-Saens, and intended to revive the works from the past centuries. Nanny's Method for double bass is still in print, over 90 years since its first publication and both volumes contain a wealth of excellent technical studies and exercises which are as relevant today as they were in the 1920s. His other volumes of studies are mostly out of print and Recital Music plan to reprint some of his orginal works for double bass, transcriptions and educational music to keep alive the name of Edouard Nanny into the 21st-century. Edouard Nanny died in Paris in 1942.

An easy virtuoso work published here for the first time and now much performed. Recorded Slatford/Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields (EMI). AMEB (Australian Syllabus) 2004. Orchestral material on hire from Yorke Edition (not Spartan).Programme Note:As a young professional player in the 1960s my work as a double bassist with chamber ensembles and small orchestras took me all over the world. This presented an unparalleled opportunity to scour libraries and archives wherever I went. Long before the advent of the photocopier and e-mail research was far more challenging than it is today. Eastern Europe was particularly difficult to access with manycollections kept under lock and key for all but a few hours a week. One quickly found colleagues who were keen to share information gleaned in passing even though they had no specific interest in one's own particular specialism (it is so often the peripheral topics that fascinate as much as the main subject under investigation and one can quickly be side-tracked into political and social issues that have only slender bearing on the job in hand!).In the early 1970s James Brown the then sub-principal oboist of the English Chamber Orchestra with whom I was working at the time stumbled across a small collection of double bass manuscripts at the Royal Danish State Library in Copenhagen. They were by Franz Anton Leopold Keÿper (b. c.1756 d. Copenhagen 7 June 1815) a double bassist of Dutch origin who worked as principal of the Royal Chapel Orchestra in Copenhagen. Keÿper's son was the bassoonist Franz Jacob August Keÿper (1792-1859). The collection included a number of concertos some chamber music and various naïve fragments. Although hardly the work of a Mozart or Haydn the style is characteristic of the period. For an instrument such as the double bass whose 18th century solo repertoire is largely written for tunings that are no longer in everyday use Keÿper's music is easily approachable in its

aus 'LEstro armonico' op. 3-L'Estro Armonico Op.3 or 'Harmonic Invention' is a collection of 12 concertos published in 1712 and dedicated to Ferdinand III. The music quickly became well-known throughout Europe and helped establish Vivaldi's reputation.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto KV 191, original pour basson et orchestre, arrangé pour contrebasse et piano. / Contrebasse / Partition