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!