Double Bass Menotti Bass Concerto?

[JayR]

I just finished up playing bass for a run of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium (awesome, amazing opera), and I was glancing over his wikipedia entry just now and saw that apparently in the early 80's he composed a bass concerto. I've tried googling it but have had little success. Has anyone ever heard/seen/played this concerto? Anyone?

 

[neilG]

I just finished up playing bass for a run of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium (awesome, amazing opera), and I was glancing over his wikipedia entry just now and saw that apparently in the early 80's he composed a bass concerto. I've tried googling it but have had little success. Has anyone ever heard/seen/played this concerto? Anyone?

The same thing happened to me. I saw mention of it in a program.
The concerto was premiered by James Vandermark and that's the only time it's been played as far as I know. I emailed him and he told me that the family, for some reason, has no desire to publish it. I was able to get the publisher (Schirmer, if I recall) to send me a perusal score. The piece is asburdly difficult, but if you want you can rent it for performance. Since I don't read full scores well, I can't really speak to the quality of the writing.
On top of all that, it's not edited and the bass part is a mess with all of Vandermarks corrections of wrong notes, clefs, etc.
I'm sure he has some sort of recording of one of his performances, so maybe someone who knows him could ask. It's a shame we don't have access to the concerto.
Neil

PS And there's no piano reduction of the orchestra part.

 

[JayR]

God, that's a bummer. The bass writing in The Medium was absolutely amazing. It's a shame that such a great composer wrote us a piece and it only saw the light of day once. But eh, if it's absurdly difficult I probably have no business crying over it anyway.

Thanks for the info.

 

[buddyro57]

This would be perfect for a DMA bassist who needs an interesting project to accompany his doctoral recitals (pending the permission of the estate etc). First thing would be to construct an edited part (in collaboration w/Vandemark if at all possible), then extrapolate a piano reduction from the full score (ugh....no thanks). That would be hard work- requiring someone with serious piano experience, but it would most likley be a real contribution to the literature......any takers?
JS

 

[JayR]

Holy crap, that is an amazing idea. I'm about to start my masters in the fall and I've been mulling over the idea of getting a DMA when I'm done, but I was having a hard time thinking of dissertation topics.

Can I steal that from you in 3 years?

 

[neilG]

Agreed, a very good idea. I can't imagine why the entity that holds the copyright would object to someone doing all that work. I checked and it is Schirmer that has the music.
G. Schirmer, Inc.
Rental and Performance Department
445 Bellvale Road
P.O. Box 572
Chester, NY 10918
Tel: 1 (845) 469 4699

 

[BassistDSSO]

I have been working on a piano reduction of the Menotti concerto for the last couple of months (with a license from Schirmer) and will be sending it to the publisher in a month or so and with luck they will publish it. I have also been editing the solo part, which is difficult, but I do not think it is unplayable. For those interested, I was given a recording of the premier by my former teacher and I thought the concerto was a very enjoyable work to listen to - melodic and very romantic. I thought it very curious that it never showed up in any catalogs or anything. It definitely deserves to be in the repertoire, hence my reason for undertaking the challenge of doing a piano score. I have been enlisting the talents of a piano playing friend to play through each movement and the part will be playable, albeit a challenge for any decent piano player. The solo part is for solo tuning and is definitely a challenge - but not more so than any other major work for the double bass. If it gets published, I will put a notice here and hope to be able to present it at the next ISB Convention.

 

[neilG]

Bravo! This is above and beyond the call of duty. I look forward to it.
Neil