Blues and Bottesini is a more apt title for this album of double bass concertos. Anyone familiar with Edgar Meyer’s recent best-selling bluegrass/classical collaborations (“Appalachia Waltz”, “Appalachian Journey”, “Short Trip Home”), or with his String Quintet or Violin Concerto will find nothing particularly surprising in this premiere recording of new concertos (works that cleverly parallel his composer/bassist predecessor Bottesini). Blues-style inflections and fiddle tunes–Meyer’s musical calling card–feature prominently and predictably in both the Double Concerto and the Concerto in D major, initially provoking a bit of déjà vu eye-rolling. Bluegrass fusion simply is Meyer’s shtick, just as native folk melodies played a major part in the works of Bartók, Dvorák, and others, and we have to learn to accept it.
What makes these pieces enjoyable listening, however, is the way in which Meyer artfully places these blues riffs within the context of classical structures. He points out in the liner notes that the third movement of the Double Concerto was modeled after the same movement of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola. Similarly, the second movement was inspired by Vivaldi’s concertos and is thus marked by striking dynamic changes and mood shifts between the orchestra (furious and energetic) and the soloists (plaintive and serene).
But, as is the case with Meyer’s other recordings (“Uncommon Ritual”, containing his mind-blowing version of Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, and his rendition of the Bach Cello Suites), the real draw for this disc rests in his uncanny, superhuman virtuosity. Meyer plays the bass as if it were a cello, or even a violin, and each track of this disc is yet another testament to his astounding technique. Check out, for instance, his own cadenza in the Bottesini B minor Concerto, which is filled with glissandos and double-stops. His featured Concerto in D covers six octaves and extends well into the violin register, and in the Double Concerto it is sometimes difficult to hear when Meyer starts and his comrade Yo-Yo Ma stops, so close in timbre are they in their respective upper registers. So, buy this for the bass, not the blues.
