20th century rep

[stan haskins]

Hi everyone -

I'm curious to see what 20th century DB solo rep you all work on, or have your students work on. I'm not looking to find terribly difficult pieces.

I'll start with the Romance from Lt. Kije suite (Prokofiev). I'm learning it from the O. Zimmerman "String Bass Solos" (unsure of title) book.

[Brian Gencarelli]

One of my personal favorites is the Hindemith Sonata. I just like the range. I think most of the new repetoire written for bass in the last 100 years is the "golden age" of bass music.

Brian

[Nick Hart]

I haven't worked on many contemporary pieces but here are a couple I can think of off the top of my head:

-Hindemith Sonata
-Psy by Berio
-Ranjbaran Ballade for Unaccompanied Bass
-Fryba Suite


There are also the Koussevitzky pieces which are more in a Romantic style than a modern style.

And there are the contemporary concertos, which are probably some of the hardest rep out there like Tubin and Schuller

[Ken Smith]

I have a Simandl Tarantella. Ring any bells?

[stan haskins]

Wow, I didn't realize Simandl wrote any 20th century music, Ken.

Actually, I'm kind of interested in this Tarantell, though (I think I'm turning into kind of a Simandl fetishist, as I go through more of his etudes for the fourth or fifth time - it'll probably pass.)

More 20th century works for DB, anyone?

[Ken Smith]

http://www.billbentgen.com/bass/players/simandl.htm

He died in 1912 so it's just touching the 20th century. I will look at the Tarantella and see if it has any dates or Edits mentioned.

EDIT(3/4/06): Ok, this was edited by Fred Zimmerman. The piece is Opus 73. I have no clue when it was actually written, sorry.

also; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler

I'm doing Mahler I at the end of this month and I have the solo..

Also for Solo the new piece called Harbison that's being performed around the country. That's a modern piece if I ever heard one!

Just Google it. Plenty to find on the 'net.

[JustinKujawski]

Generally when people say "20th century music" they are referring to music that is obviously diffrent from romantic period music that was still being written into the 20th century. Even composers such as Prokofiev, Mahler and Strauss who continued to write into the 1900's wrote some or all of their music in the romantic style.

For music that can uncontestably be considered 20th century we have to look to composers like Berio, Schuller, Tubin, Henze. Berio's Psy is a great peice but Stefano Scondanibbio prepared a transcription of Berio's Sequenza XIV (for cello) which some bass players and non-bass players (!) consider better than the original.

[stan haskins]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

I'm doing Mahler I at the end of this month and I have the solo..

Cool, Ken - Make sure you link us to the reviews!!

That piece is great, btw - When are you playing it?