SKU: BT.YE0030

An easy virtuoso work published here for the first time and now much performed. Recorded Slatford/Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields (EMI). AMEB (Australian Syllabus) 2004. Orchestral material on hire from Yorke Edition (notSpartan).

Programme Note:

As a young professional player in the 1960s, my work as a double bassist with chamber ensembles and small orchestras took me all over the world. This presented an unparalleledopportunity to scour libraries and archives wherever I went. Long before the advent of the photocopier and e-mail, research was far more challenging than it is today. Eastern Europe was particularly difficult to access, withmanycollections kept under lock and key for all but a few hours a week. One quickly found colleagues who were keen to share information gleaned in passing, even though they had no specific interest in one's own particularspecialism (it is so often the peripheral topics that fascinate as much as the main subject under investigation, and one can quickly be side-tracked into political and social issues that have only slender bearing on the job inhand!).

In the early 1970s James Brown, the then sub-principal oboist of the English Chamber Orchestra with whom I was working at the time, stumbled across a small collection of double bass manuscripts at the RoyalDanish State Library in Copenhagen. They were by Franz Anton Leopold Keÿper (b. c.1756, d. Copenhagen 7 June 1815), a double bassist of Dutch origin who worked as principal of the Royal Chapel Orchestra in Copenhagen.Keÿper's son was the bassoonist Franz Jacob August Keÿper (1792-1859). The collection included a number of concertos, some chamber music, and various naïve fragments. Although hardly the work of a Mozart or Haydn,the style is characteristic of the period. For an instrument such as the double bass, whose 18th century solo repertoire is largely written for tunings that are no longer in everyday use, Keÿper's music is easily approachablein its.

SKU: BT.YE0007

Born in Oxford in 1917, Francis Baines was a well-known and much respected professional double bass player. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Claude Hobday, where he later taught. Something of an eccentric,he immersed himself in early music at a time when few people were taking it seriously. He owned a beautiful Amati bass that he had restored as a violone, which it probably was originally, and he was a regular fixture as aprincipal player in a number of orchestras and ensembles that dedicated themselves to period performing, including those directed by Denys Darlow, with whom he broadcast and recorded frequently.

Besides playing thedoublebass, Francis Baines was an exponent of the treble viol and led the Jaye Consort of Viols which he founded. He also played several kinds of bagpipe and the hurdy-gurdy. As a composer he dabbled in many styles, one of hisgreatest claims to fame being that of writing for the popular Hoffnung concerts in the 1960s.

He was the author of a number of papers about the history of the double bass, sometimes arriving at scholarly conclusionsthat were colourful, if not always entirely accurate. He discovered the Giovannino del Violone sonatas, subsequently published by Yorke Edition, although today it is thought that they were probably not written for a 16' pitchinstrument at all. His edition of the Capuzzi double bass concerto, published by Boosey & Hawkes, was for many years one of the few solo works available for the instrument. This, however, he largely re-composed because hethought it could be improved: towards the end of his life he confessed that with hindsight he probably should have treated it differently.

Grounds was written in 1969 as a sort of party piece and was given to YorkeEdition in support of a drive to enlarge the repertoire for the instrument in a wide variety of styles. It was set on the syllabus of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music for many years.

Francis Baines died.

SKU: HL.48186681

UPC: 888680885779. 9.0x12.0x0.061 inches.

Originally for double bass and string orchestra.

SKU: HL.51483307

UPC: 196288206828. 9.25x12.0x0.062 inches.

The serenade flourished in Mozart's era, but with Brahms the genre experienced a new surge in popularity in the 19th century. Dvorák's cheerful and relaxed op. 22 came into being in 1875, during a very happy time for him both professionally and privately. Heput his personal stamp on the five-movement composition by incorporating stylized Slavonic dances. The spirited finale captivates by restating themes from the previous movements. Since its premiere in 1876 the work, with its melodic richness and particular harmonic modulations, has enjoyed great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Today it is among Dvorák's most popular and most frequently performed compositions. As well as the autograph and printed editions, the composer's copy of the printed score with autograph corrections and additions has been consulted for Henle's Urtext edition.

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