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.14021087

8.25x12.0x0.059 inches.

John McCabe's Pueblo for solo Double Bass. Duration: approx. 7 minutes.

Pueblo is an off-shoot of a series of compositions inspired by desert country, and it was commissioned by Leon Bosch with the aid of funds provided by North West Arts. The piece is continous, falling into several sections, and is largeley based on the high circling motif heard at the start and referred to again in the harmonics at the close.
It is prefaced by the following quotation from Scenes in American Deserta by Reyner Banham, published by Thames and Hudson:

'Clouds, high and flat, were now building up in thesky, the wind was settling to silent calm, the weather was very cold, and the stream through the center of the pueblo was almost frozen across, the Indians chipping out ice to melt down for water.'

The aim in writing the piece was to express in musical terms a response to the vivid picture of a scene relating to life in the American desert conveyed by Reyner Banham's text. Although not numbered among other Desert works, this belongs to this family of compositions, along with another Banham setting, written for the King's Singers, Scenes In America Deserta. - John McCabe