Beethoven 9 (getting something off my chest!)

We were playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony a few years ago at the NAC, and the Music Director was following the metronome markings provided in the Barenreiter edition by Jonathan Del Mar. This makes for a faster performance than I have ever heard or played. I like the symphony played faster overall and believe it is correct, but the difference is the Turkish March where it has been decided that Beethoven's nephew Karl, copied down the wrong note value so it is not a dotted quarter equals 84 but a dotted half note! Twice as fast as anyone knew! Typically, I think orchestras play this passage in the range of the dotted quarter at about 126-136. So the new tempo is 168…. and what was once a difficult passage has become extremely difficult, in fact we couldn’t hold it at that tempo especially in a large group of strings. Executing the already very tough string crossings and shifts is next to impossible. At that speed the charm, joy and humour of the entire march is gone and it is too quick to really feel the offbeat which is at the root of this ‘turkish-style” music. The greatness of the contrabassoon opening is wasted..utterly humourless. On the bright side, because our maestro stuck to the tempo markings, the last four pages of the symphony were quite playable which is a rare occurrence. Normally, conductors throw all caution to the wind and go nuts here.

I have argued for faster recitatives for years (ever since the Norrington recording in the 1980’s) and we are playing those pretty well; here, a dotted half equals 66 which is the same for the Presto at the outset. The feel is that each bar is in one, and I think it all hangs together much better this way. We didn’t quite manage the feel of one, because it was conducted in three for the most part. Despite this, I think we were playing closer to what Beethoven had envisioned rather than the slow, pontifical utterances one usually hears. So if you hear a mad scramble in the Turkish March, that is what is happening and you know which score the conductor has got his hands on. I recently heard a great recording of this with Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. I think the recits sounded the best I have heard them.

Me and Bottesini's Grand Duo

When I last played the Bottesini Grand Duo, it occurred to me just what a huge part it has played in my career over the last 53 years. Since I began playing full time in fifths 23 years ago I don’t go out of my way to program it (the solo tuning setup is such a pain), but it still comes up every now and then and despite me really not having a clue anymore what pitches I am playing since I read everything at pitch, I can still play it without practising and at the drop of a hat! That is mostly due to the outstanding teaching on the piece I had with Franco Petracchi in my lessons back in 1975. He insisted we play it every day, often in unison, sometimes he switched to the violin part or would accompany me with a bass line. His bowings and fingerings were the only ones he allowed and as repressive as that sounds, I think that is precisely why I can still blast through it quite easily. I have changed a few things over the years and even tried to play it in fifths in 1997 but it proved to be too "tempo-sensitive" which means I could not play it very fast. Here. is a list of violinists I can remember playing it with;

Jeremy Constant

Ted LeCouffe

Victor Martin

Fujiko Imajishi

David Zafer

Gwen Thompson

Arthur Polsen

Joe Pach

Jose Luis Garcia

Moshe Hammer

Micha Brat

Ida Kavafian

Lance Elbeck

Jacques Israelievitch

Martin Beaver

Gerard Kantarjian

Mark Fewer

Jessica Linnebach

Yehonatan Berick

Daniel Dastoor

I have maybe played the Bottesini Clarinet Grand Duo as much but my partners have been few;

James Campbell

Keith MacLeod

Stanley McCartney

David Shifrin

I could write a book just about the performances that Jim Campbell and I have done…well, at least another posting!

Appointment to the Order of Canada

December 28 2023

On December 28 2023, Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced my appointment as a member to the Order of Canada. I could not be more proud or happy for this recognition.

To learn more about the Order of Canada and its significance to Canada, please visit: Order of Canada | The Governor General of Canada

How to Use CSDB Books One and Two in a Fast One-Hour Routine

This is a quick guide as to how to use the exercises efficiently and not obsessively or without getting bogged down.

The important part of doing a technical routine is getting one that you can do almost every day and not get bored or repetitious and maybe you even enjoy doing. I think it is very possible to devise a personal routine that takes an hour a day and everyone will be different to suit individual tastes. I don’t expect everyone to love all the exercises and if you don’t want to do a particular one, then don’t! They all come around again in some form.
A lot of time and effort went into all the text in these books, please read it? I am working on getting a French version, sorry not yet!

In Book 1 the first 7 exercises are all about getting your wrists mobile and reminding your body where and how your body hangs on the bass. Simply put, while hanging with both arms; in the left you have "the move", and in the right you have the horizontal wrist and finger action which should be happening with every bow stroke and in every exercise. Depending on how much time you have to practice you can do all of an exercise or just a bit and then move on. I want to show you where I think your priorities should lie.

Exercise 1, Find the Weight; the bottom line is stop and start the bottom string without pressing or putting on excessive amounts of rosin. Focus on the low strings. 2 minutes

Exercise 2, String Crossings; use wrist only to change strings very near bridge and just do slurred 8ths. Focus on the bottom two strings if time is limited. 2 minutes

Exercise 3, The Move; hang the arm, don’t move elbow, play on the right part of the pad and get smooth action. Leave out variations. 2 minutes

Exercise 4, Hanging; do two scales up and down but only to an octave and a half and with intense vibrato. Fast way, just two scales is, 1up, 2 down, 3 up and 4 for the last part of the neck. 4 minutes

Exercise 5, The Move; do a scale like I suggest in the box. Keep a steady pitch, no elbow, with vibrato throughout. Play Variation F. 3 minutes

Exercise 6, Long Shifts; play 4-1 on top string for an octave and a half, keep in the right part of the pads, never miss a shift and connect your ears to your hand. 4 minutes

Exercise 7, Slow Shift and Pivot; do a few in thumb position and a few in the neck position, keep the good parts of the pads and play 100% legato, no shift sounds. 3 minutes So far 20 minutes….

Exercise 8, Long Tones; this is really just for advanced players that really have all the mechanics very well learnt. It is possible that a technical routine could start here eventually. I also use long tones just to help people discover the feeling of how the left arm can hang from the neck and to keep the angles of the fingers perfect in every position. Then it is very, very slow! I used to try and play 30 second bows and more!

At this point choose whatever you like; one day choose rhythmical studies and select from;

Exercise 9, “el Perro”, Exercise 10, Limbering, Exercise 11, Knucklebusters, 5 minutes

Another day do some double stops,

Exercise 12, Thirds and Fifths, or Exercise 13, Petracchi Double Stops, 5 minutes

Now do some scale work for the bow and focus on the right wrist action. For a lot of players I would suggest Exercise 17 which can easily be continuous and abbreviated. If played as is, it takes about 20-25 minutes. Jump around and do it in 10 minutes or less. On days you don’t feel like doing that, mix that up with Exercise 20, Scale Progressions or Exercise 14, Bow Distribution. we are up to 50 minutes right now…..

Take Book 2 and work in one key at a time. On one day do Intervals 3rds-5ths, 6ths-8ths the next, Chords the next, Arpeggios the next and the Acceleration scale pattern the next. Focus on scales C or D. Move in a three day cycle and give yourself a day off. 10 minutes and more if you can spare it.

Et voila! A one hour routine that covered everything and moved fast! Don’t get bogged down trying to go fast…just try and do one thing as well as you can. If you have more time you can expand this routine out accordingly. If you are obsessive, then by all means do a three hour routine or more, and try and play 30 second long tones!

Victor Martin

I am saddened to hear of the passing of violinist Victor Martin. I owe him a lot; he was my first Maestro with the Chamber Players of Toronto when I was just 18 years old and he arranged for me to go study with his friend Franco Petracchi. Victor and I played the Bottesini Grand Duo for at least fifty performances with the Chamber Players. He left Toronto to go back to Madrid and become Concertmaster of the Spanish National Orchestra in the late 1970's.

In this video he is playing with his cousin Jose Luis Garcia the former leader of the English Chamber Orchestra who passed away a few years ago; I'll never forget the excitement they caused when they played the Navarra with the CPT; that was the best thing I had ever heard! Jose Luis also became a big influence for me and we played fairly often together in the 1980's not only with the Grand Duo but on one really notable occasion (for me at least) the Beethoven "Archduke Trio" with the wonderful pianist, Robert Silverman. I'm very thankful that I got a last chance to see Victor in Madrid a couple of years ago when the LSO spent a whole weekend there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzsd8zqrO08

Launching my new website!

I am really happy to be launching this new website which I hope will inform particular music lovers of my various activities, and will also prove to be a great help to those players who wish to tune their basses in fifths or are devotees of the Canadian School of the Double Bass! Besides my recordings and teaching materials which are available in my store already, I will soon add PDF's of solo material written in concert pitch, orchestral parts with bowings and fingerings, as well as videos and properly edited versions of my own transcriptions. I can release much of this material free of charge, but please don't expect it to be very neat!

If you have any particular requests of issues you would like me to address, or pieces of music, just let me know please. I am always happy to advise on how I would approach any given musical passage.

I must thank Travis Harrison of the Winnipeg Symphony without whose help this project and many others would never have seen the light of day! Thank you Travis and best wishes as you begin your season as guest principal bass of the Canadian Opera Company.