BasS Library
VIDEO
Double Bass Concertos
Double Bass and Piano
Chamber music with Double Bass
Double Bass Solo
DISCOGRAPHY
This chamber music recording features two important anniversaries - the 150th anniversary of the death of French composer Louise Farrenc, who died on 15 September 1875 after a successful career in Paris and the 75th birthday of her Russian colleague Elena Firsowa, who was born on 21 March 1950 in Leningrad in the late-Stalinist Soviet Union. She had every reason to be glad at the "mercy of a late birth", since she was among the rebellious who bristled against the long-established standard-bearers very early on. Her piano quartet, now ten years old, is the centrepiece of this recording. Louise Farrenc once again demonstrates her impressive creative powers with her first piano quintet, and her compatriot Mel(anie) Bonis (1858-1937) deserves admiration for her first quartet, whose almost Art Nouveau-like melodies and sonorities are without question some of the most beautiful chamber music written after the turn of the century.
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.
Vivaldi: Concerto for 3 Violins in F Major, RV 551
J.S. Bach: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, BWV 1041
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048
Previn: Nonet
Saint-Georges: Violin Concerto No. 2 in A Major, Op. 5
John Williams: Nice to Be Around - from "Cinderella Liberty" (Version for Solo Violin and String Ensemble)
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons / Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 315 "Summer": III. Presto
John Williams: Theme - from "Schindler's List" (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Mutter's Virtuosi
Is the double bass simply an oversized violin or does it really belong in the viola da gamba family? The experts can’t make their minds up. The instrument is indispensable in an orchestra, but is utterly underestimated as a solo instrument – at least in the field of classical music. If you ask the young Viennese double bass player Dominik Wagner about his instrument, he won’t tire of singing its praises to the heavens. He goes into veritable raptures and can instantly run down an endless list of composers, male and female, who have written works for the double bass. As Dominik Wagner writes in the accompanying booklet: “My aim is to have done with prejudices once and for all and show that the double bass can do a whole lot more than plink away in the background! This CD sets out to be a tribute to the double bass. A portrait of its potential, a love letter praising all its familiar and as yet unfamiliar facets, timbres and expressive possibilities. An invitation to embrace the warm, soft, welcoming tone of the bass and establish its songful and tuneful credentials.”
Georg Breinschmid der Komponist! Dieses Werk, „Classical Brein“, stellt vor allem den Komponisten Georg Breinschmid in den Vordergrund, der als einer der Ersten den Begriff Crossover salonfähig gemacht hat und auf diesem Doppelalbum sowohl klassische aber auch jazzige Kompositionen präsentiert. Immer mehr wird er zu einem Komponisten, der nicht bloß für Formationen schreibt, in denen er selbst am Kontrabass mitwirkt, sondern für andere Solisten, Klangkörper, Festivals und Veranstalter, die sich Musik von ihm wünschen. So spiegelt sich das vielfältige Repertoire auch in der Trackliste auf seinem Album wieder: Von „Vier Sätze für Streichquartett“, „Impressionen für Klavierquintett“, über „Sinfonia Concertante"“ bis zu Duos und Quartetten ist alles dabei. Kongeniale Partner wie Sängerin und Kabarettistin Caroline Athanasiadis, Cellist Matthias Bartolomey, Kontrabassist Dominik Wagner, Geiger Benjamin Schmid, Geiger Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Bratschist Benedict Mitterbauer, Cellist Jeremias Fliedl, Pianist Maximilian Kromer, Geiger Vahid Khadem-Missagh und seine Academia Allegro Vivo, Journalist Axel Brüggemann und "kammerfunk" unterstützen ihn bei diesem Projekt.
Virtuoso repertoire, brilliantly presented: Dominik Wagner is releasing his Bottesini album “Revolution of Bass” with Berlin Classics. Due to appear at the end of October, the album features such works as the composer’s Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor for solo double bass and two Duos with Benjamin Schmid on violin and Jeremias Fliedl playing cello. The artists are accompanied by the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn under Emmanuel Tjeknavorian – very much to the liking of Dominik Wagner, who played his first concert together with Tjeknavorian ten years ago and has been a close friend of his ever since.
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