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Double Bass Chamber Music featuring Double Bass

Neil Pye

Neil Pye

Apr 13, 2016
579
597
61
Horsham, UK
#1
Hi All,
I'm getting more and more pleasure from playing chamber music as I get older, and I have loads of repertoire for bass and piano, bass duets, trios etc and some for bass and violin, bass and cello etc. What I'm looking for is rep for larger chamber groups - quintets and up for mixed forces. I have all the obvious stuff - Beethoven septet, Schubert octet, the Trout etc. Do you have any suggestions? I have a good pool of accomplished pro/semi pro players to draw from, so technical difficulty is not really an issue, more my ignorance of what's out there!!
Help me out?

Neil
 
#6
Like I said, I have a good pool of players to recruit from, top pro string players and clarinet/horn/bassoon, and a bunch of very good amateur oboe, flute, harp etc etc so just about any combination could be covered. Prokofiev sounds like fun.
 
#12
I've developed a hobby of tracking down a lot of the pieces on that list and become quite good at finding copies. A lot of the music on that list is unpublished, out of print or never published. Much of it does not appear on catalogs such as Worldcat. Some composers need to be contacted personally, and I've had some send me music, sometimes for free. If anyone has a good idea of how to share the database, I'd be interested in sharing. My dream would be a Wiki, but don't have the skills to build one. In the meantime if anyone has a question about a particular piece, ask me as I might have already found it.
 
#13
neilG said:
I've developed a hobby of tracking down a lot of the pieces on that list and become quite good at finding copies. A lot of the music on that list is unpublished, out of print or never published. Much of it does not appear on catalogs such as Worldcat. Some composers need to be contacted personally, and I've had some send me music, sometimes for free. If anyone has a good idea of how to share the database, I'd be interested in sharing. My dream would be a Wiki, but don't have the skills to build one. In the meantime if anyone has a question about a particular piece, ask me as I might have already found it.
Click to expand...
I've spent a lot of time with that list, as well. There's a lot of obscure stuff on there, and that makes it difficult to find anything. I even printed the whole thing out at one point and highlighted every composer I've heard of and circled the pieces I'd already played. I doubt I highlighted more than 8% of the list. Still, I found a few gems in there that I didn't know about.

Quite a few of the larger formations aren't really chamber music, either, as they almost certainly require a conductor. You might also notice the majority of the list is contemporary music, which might not be your bag. There are thousands of baroque pieces which can use a bass which are not on this list.

The best way I know to use the list is to Control+F the name of a composer you like or the instrumentation you want to use. About half the time you can find a recording or score sample online, but finding a score for sale is often not possible. Direct contact with the composers or their family is sometimes the only way.
 
#14
Thanks guys. Loads of stuff to work through and look into! I'm a great believer in personal recommendations, so if anyone has played any of the more obscure pieces and had good responses, please let me know. Off to do some hunting online!
 
#17
neilG said:
I've put the big list into Xcel spreadsheets, including one for duos and another for unaccompanied pieces. If there is a way to post them here and let people update them, I'd be happy to share them. I'm always finding new pieces to add. Here's the duos list as an example.
Click to expand...
That's a great idea! I have around 300 or so peices for bass solo/duet/trio up to Octet, but not much for mixed ensembles. Happy to share what I have, too
 
#20
daveriedstra said:
Rebecca Saunders - Fury II
contrabass solo, cello, bass clarinet, accordion, piano, percussion
Click to expand...
I love this piece! One of my favorites to play. In fact, my ensemble is taking the piece on a big tour of Europe next year with choreography.

But it's not chamber music. It requires a conductor, despite the small number of players.
 

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