Absence of Double Bass in Chamber Music

[richardfinegold]

I listened to the Schubert Trout Quintet recently, which is one of my favorite pieces of music. One of it's many felicities is the presence of the bass plunking it's way merrily along.
I realized that I would be hard pressed to name other small ensemble pieces that were similarly graced by this most delightful instrument. I realize that a host of lesser 19th century composers, such as Spohr or Hummel, wrote works featuring the bass, but I can't think of any chamber music by the likes of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms,or the great French and Russian composers. To quote Alice In Wonderland, "Curious and curiouser!"
Any thoughts?

[Suffolkcoastal]

The Beethoven Septet, Schubert Octet and Dvorak's 2nd String Quintet, are probably the best known works to feature a double bass after the 'Trout'. Other works, Prokofiev's Quintet in G minor, Martinu's Nonet, Vaughan Williams early Piano Quintet, the Hummel Quintet and the Balakirev Octet come to mind. I performed in the Balakirev many years ago, but have never come across a recording of it.

[pastoralguy]

I listened to the Schubert Trout Quintet recently, which is one of my favorite pieces of music. One of it's many felicities is the presence of the bass plunking it's way merrily along.
I realized that I would be hard pressed to name other small ensemble pieces that were similarly graced by this most delightful instrument. I realize that a host of lesser 19th century composers, such as Spohr or Hummel, wrote works featuring the bass, but I can't think of any chamber music by the likes of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms,or the great French and Russian composers. To quote Alice In Wonderland, "Curious and curiouser!"
Any thoughts?

I suspect that he standard of bass playing at this time was not reliable enough for composers to trust it's inclusion in chamber works. If the bass line wasn't in tune then th upper players would be as well to pack up and go home.

Today, of course, it's a totally different matter.

[Pabmusic]

I suspect that he standard of bass playing at this time was not reliable enough for composers to trust it's inclusion in chamber works. If the bass line wasn't in tune then th upper players would be as well to pack up and go home.

Today, of course, it's a totally different matter.

I'm sure that's right, but there may also have been a sort of psychological predisposition among classical and even early romantic composers that regarded the cello and the bass as two sides of the same coin. Look at how it was usual to write almost the same music for each in orchestral pieces (actually, often as one line on one stave, albeit that the bass would sound an octave lower - Mozart for instance). There were exceptions - Dittersdorf for instance - but it was the novelty that was important there, I suspect.

[verismissimo]

While we're on the subject, what's recommended as a recording of the Trout?

I'm having it played for my (significant) birthday next year!

[Hornspieler]

The Beethoven Septet, Schubert Octet and Dvorak's 2nd String Quintet, are probably the best known works to feature a double bass after the 'Trout'. Other works, Prokofiev's Quintet in G minor, Martinu's Nonet, Vaughan Williams early Piano Quintet, the Hummel Quintet and the Balakirev Octet come to mind. I performed in the Balakirev many years ago, but have never come across a recording of it.

Well I've played both of those two and there hasn't been a double bass anywhere within sight or sound. Dvorak's Serenade for wind instruments includes a double bass. (2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 3 horns and 2 bassoons plus cello and bass)
Some performances substitute contra bassoon for one of those two stringed instruments.

In message #3 Pastoralguy wrote:

I suspect that he standard of bass playing at this time was not reliable enough for composers to trust it's inclusion in chamber works. If the bass line wasn't in tune then th upper players would be as well to pack up and go home.

Today, of course, it's a totally different matter.

Is it? ... which leads me to a nice little weekend story:

A trip to the Channel Islands to play with the local orchestra .

A fellow student who played the clarinet arranged that the two of us should go over to play two concerts.
It was a nice engagement. We were to fly over, stay with my colleague's father, who played the ´cello, and stay on afterwards for a few days to see the sights and maybe give a couple of lessons. The piano soloist travelled over on the same aircraft.

The conductor was a little Italian music master who was so short that only the top of his head and his right arm (wielding a baton almost as long as himself) could be seen over the top of the rostrum.

The first oboe `gave the A' and I thought for a moment that someone had trodden on the cat.
Perhaps he sensed that I was staring at his reed, which looked like a worn out child's paint brush, because he turned round in his seat and said “It's a wonderful reed, this. Do you know, I've had this reed for eleven years! “

The solitary double bass player (who was the local policeman) had probably the only three-stringed bass still in existence.
When the conductor told him that a certain note was flat, he replied “It can't be, Mr. Conductor. It's my open string!”

HS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well I've played both of those two and there hasn't been a double bass anywhere within sight or sound.

Both include a part for Double Bass; perhaps they went to the wrong gig (or the right Pub)?

Dvorak's Serenade for wind instruments includes a double bass. (2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 3 horns and 2 bassoons plus cello and bass)
Some performances substitute contra bassoon for one of those two stringed instruments.

- Mozart's "Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments", too, which originally was for 12 winds and DB. (= "Double Bass", not "Daniel Barenboim".)

There's also the young Mendelssohn's Piano Sextet, but rfg's comment in the OP is generally true - the Double Bass is missing from the mainstream 19th Century Chamber repertoire (as is the Flute, curiously enough) and it was only in the 20th Century that it was incorporated more comfortably (Varese's Octet, Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale). It is particularly effectively used in this piece (as the sound samples demonstrate):

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/5404206/a/alistair+hinton%3A+string+quintet.htm

[cloughie]

I suspect that he standard of bass playing at this time was not reliable enough for composers to trust it's inclusion in chamber works. If the bass line wasn't in tune then th upper players would be as well to pack up and go home.

Today, of course, it's a totally different matter.

Indeed so and to go off at not too much of a tangent the double-bass strummed forms a key part along with either guitar or drums and piano as that well known jazz chamber group the piano trio! The strummed bass has evolved to the bass guitar - how many pop/rock songs have three-part harmonies probably equating to baritone, 1st and 2nd tenor the bass-line taken up by the bass-guitar.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I read HS comments with surprise, the Bass certainly plays in both the Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet, neither bass part in these works is that difficult, though the variations movement in the Schubert is a bit tricky. It is interesting to see where the bass in placed on stage in both these works on the various performances on you tube, generally it is placed in the centre. We don't hear the Dvorak 2nd Quintet enough, and the tricky balance of having a bass in small ensemble is well handled.
The Bass as a solo concerto instrument is very limited in the 19th Century, the Bottesini concertos being rare examples. There are a fair number of 18th and 20th century concertos though.

[richardfinegold]

Indeed so and to go off at not too much of a tangent the double-bass strummed forms a key part along with either guitar or drums and piano as that well known jazz chamber group the piano trio! The strummed bass has evolved to the bass guitar - how many pop/rock songs have three-part harmonies probably equating to baritone, 1st and 2nd tenor the bass-line taken up by the bass-guitar.

It's very prevalence in jazz and pop leads one to wonder why it is so rarely found in Classical Music.

[richardfinegold]

While we're on the subject, what's recommended as a recording of the Trout?

I'm having it played for my (significant) birthday next year!

I've been so happy with the Rudolf Serkin/Jaime Laredo et. al. recording (Music From Marlboro) that I haven't investigated many others. It also stimulated me to make a pilgrimage to Marlboro Vermont a few years ago to take in a few concerts.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's very prevalence in jazz and pop leads one to wonder why it is so rarely found in Classical Music.

I think pastoralguy summed this up well in post #3, rfg. The Double Bass didn't get "standardized" until the 20th Century, too - three-stringed instruments were still quite common in the early 20th C, even when the four (and five) stringed versions were available. I think the 19th C works that have been mentioned on this thread were all written with a specific performer (whom the composer knew) in mind. A composer could write for any member of the Violin family, knowing that every violin/viola/cello would have the same tuning system and the same number of strings. This wasn't the case with the DB.

[Suffolkcoastal]

The Double Bass when bowed doesn't have a great deal of carrying power, so it is easily overpowered by other instruments in the ensemble, though the pizzicato is a different matter and in this the bass has plenty of weight. Also the bass is tuned in 4ths, (it is a member of the viol family) whilst the Violin, Viola and Cello tuned in 5ths, so certain figurations straightforward on these instruments are very difficult, or impractical on the bass. So unless you had a outstanding bass player (a Dragonetti or Bottesini) around the bass parts would need to be limited in scope, which along with the balance mentioned above would put many composers off.

[ahinton]

The Double Bass when bowed doesn't have a great deal of carrying power, so it is easily overpowered by other instruments in the ensemble, though the pizzicato is a different matter and in this the bass has plenty of weight. Also the bass is tuned in 4ths, (it is a member of the viol family) whilst the Violin, Viola and Cello tuned in 5ths, so certain figurations straightforward on these instruments are very difficult, or impractical on the bass. So unless you had a outstanding bass player (a Dragonetti or Bottesini) around the bass parts would need to be limited in scope, which along with the balance mentioned above would put many composers off.

Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846) and, after him, Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) were the two pioneering virtuosi who arguably did more than anyone else to put the double bass on the map as something far more than a continuo instrument. The former knew and worked with Haydn and Beethoven and certainly exerted notable influence on Beethoven's orchestral double bass writing. The latter, belonging to the generation after Paganini just as Dragonetti belonged to the one before him, earned himself the reputation as "the Paganini of the double bass".

In the right hands and with the right instrument, a bowed double bass can indeed hold its own in a chamber ensemble in terms of carrying power, as demonstrated amply in the recording mentioned by fgh above, of which the third CD includes an extended aria for soprano and double bass alone that requires and gets some most powerful and athletic playing. The demands made of orchestral double bass players today are such as would have seemed undreamable in earlier times had it not been for the examples of those two Italian masters - think Haydn the keyboard composer contemplating the extremes of pianistic virtuosity called for by Liszt and Alkan within well less than half a century of his death.

That said, players capable of performing the double bass part in the aforementioned recording with the command that the truly remarkable Corrado Canonici does simply don't grow on trees, even in his native Italy (what is it about Italy and the double bass?!); even seasoned contemporary virtuosi of the instrument have expressed utter astonishment at Canonici's extraordinary abilities. I understand that he is now devoting more of his time to concert management than to playing which, while I wish him every success with this, seems a very sad thing...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I understand that he is now devoting more of his time to concert management than to playing which, while I wish him every success with this, seems a very sad thing...

This is appalling news - somebody stop him!