Description
Newly released on CD!
Digitally remastered.
Just from the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ title, one can tell that this is a record with a sense of humor. It is also a record of worthwhile music played by very accomplished musicians.
Gunther Schuller has always felt that the underdogs were in fact beautiful and richly versatile instruments capable of a wide range of expression and virtuosity.
”The Quartet for Doublebasses was composed in 1947, with some revisions in the last movement in 1959. When presented to a well-known bass teacher and "virtuoso" in 1948, it was declared unplayable and the aberrant meanderings of a French-horn playing composer who didn't know how to write for the bass. I look upon this somewhat bemusedly today, but at the time this rejection of my labor of love on behalf of the bass fraternity and the dearth of serious bass literature depressed me considerably. But then, these things were not unusual in the 1940s — when composers more or less expected not to get performed, unlike today when one has a reasonable expectation of performance of almost any new chamber work with our hundreds of university symposia, arts festivals and contemporary performing groups.
In any event, my bass quartet was taken up many years later — in 1959 — by Fred Zimmerman and a group of dedicated young bass players who subsequently gave the first performance of the work under my direction in Carnegie Recital Hall in the spring of 1960. It has since been widely performed all over the world.
— Gunther Schuller
PERFORMERS
Harvey Phillips, tuba; members of the New England Conservatory Orchestra; Robert Gladstone, Frederick Zimmerman, Orin O’Brien, Alvin Brehm, bass
PROGRAM
Side 1
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Concerto for Bass Tuba and Orchestra in F Minor (1954) 13:17
1. I. “Prelude” (Allegro moderato) 4:05
2. II. “Romanza” (Andante sostenuto) 5:42
3. III. “Rondo alla Tedesca” (Allegro) 3:30
Gunther Schuller: Capriccio for Tuba and Orchestra (1960) 10:16
4. I. Slow – Allegro 3:02
5. II. Adagio 5:40
6. III. Molto adagio 1:34
Side 2
Gunther Schuller: Quartet for Double Basses (1947) 16:40
1. I. Allegro moderato 4:01
2. II. Allegro scherzanzdo 5:19
3. III. Adagio 7:20
Recorded on (side 1) January 1975 and (side 2) July 1959.
Producer: Gunther Schuller
ALSO AVAILABLE
for downloads and streaming on Amazon as well as other digital sites.
