Robin Holloway: Bass Concerto premiere

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(June 1999)

Of all string instruments, the double bass has too frequently been regarded as the Cinderella of the family. The virtuosity of Duncan McTier has done much to redress the balance, and the new work written for him by Robin Holloway was described by the press at its premiere as the most successful and resourceful of recent concertos for the instrument. Given its first series of performances in March by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton, the Concerto for Double Bass and Small Orchestra is a co-commission with the Northern Sinfonia who toured it in Northern England in April, and Sinfonia 21 who perform it in London in March 2000.

Holloway tackled the inherent balance problems head on, stripping the chamber orchestra colours back to reveal the personality of the solo instrument, "shy, woolly, but warm", in a work described by the Sunday Times as "wintry and gaunt but none the less hauntingly eloquent". The distinct musical qualities of the work were noted by the Scotsman: "at the end [of the concert], themes from the Holloway were still tugging at my memory. How often does that happen at a premiere these days?"

"Robin Holloway is a master craftsman. He has some of the most acute ears among British composers, with an unrivalled flair for detail and colouring… he possesses an intellectual lucidity that one can only envy. All of these skills and gifts were on display last night in his Concerto for Double Bass… with its long, self-perpetuating melodic lines, and some of the most subtle and discreet orchestration I have heard from any composer, Holloway has written a piece with immediate appeal, where every note of the double bass is audible, and where the most apparently cumbersome of orchestral instruments has a real lyrical voice in every register of the instrument" Glasgow Herald

"…a double-bass concerto which looks set to become a classic." The Scotsman

"…the first movement as a whole could be seen as one huge melodic span, the bass soloist always leading. The orchestral writing tends to be very spare – it has to be – but the lyrical warmth of the bass writing more than compensates… there isn’t a single sharp or flat in the entire first movement, and yet it’s full of harmonic variety and expressive character… Jazz-like pizzicato dominates the central scherzo (echoes of the great jazz bassist Charles Mingus), while the more episodic finale returns to meditative, if occasionally troubled lyricism… Dark though Holloway’s new Concerto may be, it’s also a friendly, tuneful work." BBC Music Magazine

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